
i LI BRARY OF C iXGRE SS. ! 

, 

^UNITED STATESOF AMERICA. 














Jesus at Nazareth. 



Seeing Jesus. 



Page 97. 



SEEING JESLTS. 



]»7 J 



-^ 



-■■■ 



BY 

Eev. HENRY A/ XELSOX, D.D., 

Of Lane Theological Seminary. 






m 4»+ - — 




PHILADELPHIA: 

PRESBYTERIAN PUBLICATION COMMITTEE, 

1334 CHESTNUT STREET. 

NEW YORK: A. D. F. RANDOLPH & CO., 770 BROADWAY. 



19 






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Entered according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1869, by 

WM. L. HILDEBURN, Treasurer, 

in trust for the 

PRESBYTERIAN PUBLICATION COMMITTEE, 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Eastern District 

of Pennsylvania. 



Westcott & Thomson, 
Stereotypers, Philada. 



\ J ■■ 



M 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER PAGE 

I. Seeing Jesus 7 

II. Jesus in Bethlehem 26 

III. Jesus at Nazareth 37 

IV. Jesus at the Jordan 51 

V. Nicodemus' Visit to Jesus 63 

VI. Jesus at Sychar 80 

VII. Jesus at Nazareth again 92 

VIII. Jesus at the Pharisee's Table 104 

IX. The Transfiguration 116 

X. Jesus with the Sinning Woman 129 

XI. Jesus in the House of Martha and 

Mary 144 

XII. The Last Supper 161 

3 



DEDICATION. 



To the children whose pastor I have been, and to 
those who were children when I was their pastor, 
this little book is affectionately inscribed, with the 
sincere prayer that they may all be so happy as to 
"See Jesus, 1 ' "the only begotten of the Father, full 
of grace and truth." 

H. A. X. 

Lane Seminary, 
Cincinnati, Sept. 15, 1869. 
1* 



SEEING JESUS. 



i. 



SEEING JESUS. 



E read in the Gospel, as 
written by John (xii. 20- 
22), of "certain Greeks" 
who came to Philip, 
"which was of Beth- 
saida of Galilee, and de- 
sired him, saying, Sir, we would see 
Jesus. Philip cometh, and telleth 
Andrew, and again Andrew and 
Philip tell Jesus." 

I have often wondered who those 
"Greeks" were; what country they 
came from ; why they came to Jerusa- 




8 SEEING JESUS. 

lem; and why they desired to "see 
Jesus." 

Some think that they were Jews, 
who lived out of Judea in some of the 
countries in which the Greek language 
was spoken. There were many such 
in those days. The Jews had been 
dispersed into many lands by their 
captivities and their migrations; and 
those of them who spoke the Greek 
language might be called "Greeks" or 
" Grecians" although they were not of 
Grecian descent. 

You know that now the Jews are 
still more widely scattered, even 
among all nations, according to God's 
ancient threatening against them if 
they should disobey him, and in 
punishment, doubtless of their great 
national crime, the rejection and 
murder of Messiah. JSTow, you know, 



SEEING JESUS. 9 

there are English Jews, and German 
Jews, and Italian Jews, and Spanish 
Jews, and so on. They are all Jews, 
by descent from Israel, and they are 
English, or Italian, or Spanish, or Ger- 
man, or American, according to the lan- 
guage which they speak and the coun- 
try in which they live. It was also 
true, in the New Testament times, 
that people might be Greeks who did 
not live in Greece. Ancient Greece 
was very much like modern England 
— a small country, belonging to a 
very energetic and enterprising people. 
They sent out many colonies, and at 
length it came to pass that their lan- 
guage was spoken, and their people 
were found, and their ideas prevailed 
in many countries; just as now you 
may go to Canada, and to Australia, 
and to New Zealand, and to India and 



10 SEEING JESUS. 

China, and you will find plenty of 
English men and women, wearing Eng- 
lish dress and speaking the English 
language, and doing everything in an 
English fashion. They are English 
men and women; and their children 
are English children, and will grow 
up to be English men and women 
although they may never have seen 
England in their lives. 

So it was wdth Greece and the 
Greeks; and we cannot say whether 
these Greeks who wished to see Jesus, 
had come from Greece itself or from 
some other country. We cannot cer- 
tainly tell whether they were strictly 
Greek people, or (as I said before) 
Jewish people living in Greek prov- 
inces and speaking the Greek lan- 
guage. It is far more important to 
knoAV who he was whom they wished 



SEEING JESUS. 11 

to see than to find out who they were 
that washed to see him; and we are 
much better able to do so. 

We are told that these Greeks were 
among those that came to Jerusalem 
"to worship at the feast." It is un- 
certain whether they were well in- 
structed in the true religion, and came 
with a good knowledge and a holy 
fear of the only true God, or whether 
they were worshipers of man} 7 gods 
fabled in the Greek mythology. They 
may have considered Jehovah only 
another god, like their Jupiter and 
Neptune and Mars — a god who w T as 
the special patron of the Jews, and 
had a splendid temple in their chief 
city. 

It is said that some people did go 
to Jerusalem in that way and make 
offerings in that temple. 



12 SEEING JESUS. 

The really interesting thing about 
them is, that they wished to "see 
Jesus. ' : I do not know why. It may 
he that it was only as you Avould wish 
to see General Grant or General Sher- 
man if either of them were to come 
near your home, or as you would wish 
to see Queen Victoria or Emperor 
Napoleon if you were in London or 
Paris. The natural wish which we 
all have to see any famous person 
may have been all that there was in 
the minds of these Greeks. For the 
fame of Jesus had spread very far at 
that time. It was only a few days 
before the time of his crucifixion ; and 
his heavenly teachings and wonderful 
works had been talked about, and 
doubtless written about, in many 
letters for three years. 

It would not be strange if quick- 



SEEING JESUS. 13 

minded Greeks, who had only thus 
heard of Jesus, should wish to see 
him. And how natural it was that 
they should apply to one of his dis- 
ciples, with a polite request that he 
would give them an opportunity ! 
Perhaps we can even find a reason 
why they applied to Philip rather 
than to either of the other disciples. 
Philip is a Greek name. It would 
sound more familiar to Greeks than 
some of the other names. If we were 
in a citv where we were strangers, and 
wanted to ask some question or some 
favor, we should be much more likely 
to apply to a man whose name was 
Smith, or Brown, or Williams, than 
to one whose name was Zai Ping- 
Wang, or Umpandi, or JNTordheimer, 
or Pulkowtski, or Dobinski. 

We should feel more sure that he 



14 SEEING JESUS. 

was a person who could understand 
us. Even if we had no doubt about 
being able to make ourselves under- 
stood, still a name such as we had 
always been familiar with, which was 
the name of some of our neighbors, or 
perhaps of some uncle or aunt, who 
had given us toys, and at whose houses 
we had loved to visit, would attract us 
more than a strange-sounding name, 
that we could not pronounce if we saw 
it on a sign-board, and would not 
know how to spell if we heard it pro- 
nounced. 

I do not know that this had any- 
thing to do with those Greeks apply- 
ing to Philip, but I think that per- 
haps it had, for it was not only a 
name that Greeks would understand, 
but that was very famous in Greek 
history. It. would be as familiar to 



SEEING JESUS. 15 

the readers of Greek* books as Wash- 
ington, or Wellington, or Cromwell 
are to the readers of English books. 

At any rate, they came to Philip 
and told him that they wished to "see 
Jesus. y Philip seemed to be pleased 
with this — at least not displeased — for 
he went directly and spoke to Andrew 
about it (Andrew, you know, was 
from the same village with Philip — 
Bethsaida), and they together went 
and told Jesus. 

John does not tell us whether the 
Lord consented to let the Greeks come 
and see him. He only tells us how 
Jesus immediately proceeded to speak 
some weighty and solemn words about 
the glorification which he, "the Son 
of man," w r as about to have, and to in- 
timate, in his own wonderful style of 
parables, that he was to come to it as 



16 SEEING JESUS. 

the corn of wheat comes to its glorifi- 
cation by first falling down into the 
ground and dying, then springing up 
in green and living and fruit-bearing 
glory. 

I do not think that the Lord refused 
to let those Greeks come and see him. 
I rather think that he, by his look or 
manner, gave his consent that they 
should come* up among those who 
were listening to him, and stand just 
as near him as they pleased, hearing 
his words and seeing his face. 

He may (I think likely) have cour- 
teously waved his hand to them, 
showing them where to stand while 
they listened; and may have bent his 
eyes upon them for an instant — those 
deep eyes into which they might gaze 
as w T e gaze into the blue of heaven, 
and in which, if their own eyes were 



SEEIXG JESUS. 17 

opened, they could see that wonderful 
look of holy pity and sorrow which 
beamed from his pure and compas- 
sionate soul. But he could not stop 
from his teaching, and turn to 
some light chatting, or listen to any 
flowery compliments which their 
smooth Greek tongues might have 
ready for him. 

Oh no. It was only a week till he 
would be crucified, and the burdening 
thought of that great agony was on 
him, too heavy for any idle words to 
interest" him, if he had not always 
been too serious and grave for that. 

I hope that those Greeks did not 
merely "see Jesus y so as to gratify 
their curiosity, or so as to be able to 
i>*o home and describe him to their 






friends — able to tell the height of his 
stature, the fashion of his garments, 

2* 



18 SEEING JESUS. 

the length of his beard, and the pecu- 
liarities of his countenance; or to de- 
scribe to their artists the perfection 
of his form and features, surpassing 
those of their Apollo. 

I rather hope that they saw him so 
as to feel the divine power of his pres- 
ence, and were quickened by those 
holy and mighty words which he . 
spake, "which are spirit and which 
are life." 

For do you not know, children, that 
to see a person may mean little or 
may mean much? Do you not know 
that looking on the same face or the 
same picture, one person may see a 
great deal more than another? 

I was once sitting with a friend who 
had come far to see me, and we were 
earnestly engaged in talking of some- 



SEEING JESUS. 19 

thing in which we both felt deeply in- 
terested. 

Suddenly my friend raised his eyes, 
and they lighted on a little picture 
that hung on the wall near us — a little 
picture of a child's face. 

"Oh!" he exclaimed, "that is a 
sweet picture — a lovely, dear face," and 
as he spoke his own face lighted up 
with a glow that fairly transfigured it. 

He was the father of that little 
child — in heaven now, standing among 
the angels ; and although I had seen 
that child, and had loved her, and 
had held her in my arms, and 
called her by a name that is very 
dear to me, while I baptized her into 
"that Name which is above every 
name,' and although that little pic- 
ture had seemed to me a sweet and 
beautiful picture, I perceived that the 



20 SEEING JESUS. 

child's father could see unspeakably 
more in it than I could see. 

I could understand this well enough, 
for my eye did not have to move far 
from that picture to fall upon another — 
the face of another child whom Jesus 
has taken to himself, in which I very 
well know that I can see more, much 
more, than any other man can see, or 
any woman except one. 

Ah! thev tell us that "love is blind." 
Perhaps it is sometimes and in some 
respects; but I am sure that on the 
contrary love quickens our power to 
see — makes us able to see much of real 
beauty to which we should be blind 
without it. 

And that is real beauty which hon- 
est and pure love sees. It is the most 
real and the most beautiful beauty 
that there is. 



SEEING JESUS. 21 

I have looked upon a living face in 
which some others would perhaps see 
nothing but the wrinkled, faded face of 
an old woman, but I could always see 
in it many unutterable things. I could 
always see a beautiful picture of home, 
and could read a touching history of 
Cares, and toils, and watchfulness, and 
patience; and I could see inexhaust- 
ible mother-love, fixed as the moun- 
tains and deep as the sea. I hope 
that each of vou, children, when you 
are as old as I am, will remember one 
old, wrinkled and faded face in which 
you can see beauty that could not fade, 
and which you may expect to see 
again "in the light of God." 

Those Greeks that took pains to 
"see Jesus" did they see in him only 
such a form and such features? only a 
Galilean man, wearing plain clothes, 



22 SEEING JESUS. 

and behaving in a plain, unassuming, 
ordinary way? only a noble-looking, 
thoughtful, dignified man, saying and 
doing very remarkable things? Or 
were their eyes so opened that they 
could "see the Lamb of God" — that 
they could see " divine compassion 
beaming in his gracious eye?" 

If we know how and why they came 
to him, we could better, judge how 
much they would see in him. If they 
came only from curiosity, such as we 
should all feel to see any famous per- 
son, it is not likely that they would 
see as much as if they came knowing 
that he was a Saviour from sin, know- 
ing that they were sinners and that 
they needed such a Saviour. 

If they came thus, I should not 
have much doubt that they would look 
on him with that love and faith which 



SEEING JESUS. 23 

so open the eyes of people and make 
them see things that to others are 
invisible. 

And now, my children, I am think- 
ing how it would be with yon if I 
could take you, as Philip (I suppose) 
took those Greeks, to "see Jesus" 
How much would you see in him? 
Would he appear to you "the chiefest 
among ten thousand,' or would he be 
to you "as a root out of dry ground, 
having no form nor comeliness?' 
That would depend on the question 
whether vou have felt his love in vour 
hearts or not. 

I cannot take you* to see him in that 
way. He is no more known or seen 
"after the flesh." But the best part 
of that belie vino- and affectionate see- 

CD 

ing you can have now; for do you 
not perceive that that depends on 



24 SEEING JESUS. 

knowing him— really knowing him, I 
mean — knowing him not with the 
mind only, but with the mind and 
heart? Dear children, it just seems 
to me as if you w^ere saying to me, as 
those Greeks said to Philip, "Sir, we 
would see Jesus. r It is not necessary 
for me to go and speak w T ith Andrew 
or any one else about it; for in the 
blessed New Testament it is plainly 
enough told me that I may bring you 
directly to him — may assure you that 
you may come to him, and no one may 
forbid you. 

I am certain that he wishes you to 
know him, which is the best part of see- 
ing, and he bids me do all I can to 
help you thus to know him, thus to 
see him. 

mlm *i* *£* %f* «A» %£* 

»y» rj» »J» *y» *J» »y» 

Let me now lead you to some of the 



SEEING JESUS. 25 

places in which the holy evangelists 
show Jesus to us. I wish you to study 
those scenes so well that they will be 
fixed in your memories; so that after- 
ward, whenever you turn your 
thoughts to them, it will be like turn- 
ing your eyes to a picture — the pic- 
ture of some dear face or some scene 
of precious remembrance. I will try to 
help you to do this. May God keep me 
from making any mistakes, and help 
me show Jesus to you just as he is I 
And may he give each of you a ten- 
der, penitent, thankful heart, which 
can so love and so understand him 
that you will see in him the heavenly 
beauty which careless and impenitent 
minds cannot see, and do not conceive 1 



II. 




JESUS IN BETHLEHEM. 

ETHLEHEM is a large 

village, about six miles 
from the great city Jeru- 
salem. It is " beautifully 
situated on the brow of a 
high hill, which com- 
mands an extensive view of the sur- 
rounding mountainous country, and 
rises in pastures of vineyards, almond 
groves and fig plantations, watered by 
gentle rivulets that murmur through 
the terraces; and is diversified by 
towers and wine-presses." 

This is the description of it as it is 
now (given by Dr. Kitto), anjl it is 

26 



JESUS IN BETHLEHEM. 27 

probable that its appearance was not 
very different when Jesus was born 
there, and hundreds of years longer 
ago, when David, a young and ruddy- 
cheeked boy, lived there and kept his 
father's sheep. Perhaps he led them 
forth sometimes over the very pastures 
on which the shepherds were keeping 
their flocks when they saw that strange 
lio-ht and heard the sweet son 2; of the 
choir of angels, " Glory to God in the 
highest, and on earth peace, good-will 
to men." 

I would like to go to Bethlehem, 
not because it is a more beautiful vil- 
lage than many others, but because it 
is such an interesting Bible-place — the 
home of young David, who slew Goli- 
ath and was afterward Israel's noblest 
king, and the birth-place of the Son 
of David, the anointed king of Zion. 



28 SEEING JESUS. 

If we should go to England to visit 
the birth-place of her prince, the heir 
of her throne, we should find it in a 
splendid palace in the great city of 
London. But the birth-place of King 
Jesus was not a palace. It was a 
stable. If we could have gone there 
with the shepherds, we should have 
" found Mary and Joseph, and the 
babe lying in a manger." 

Can you not "see Jesus" with your 
mind's eye. You have seen pictures 
of him as he lay in that manger, the 
sweet face of his virgin mother close 
beside him, the grave, good Joseph 
standing not far away, and the won- 
dering shepherds or the adoring " wise 
men from the East" gazing reverently 
on the babe from which Mary gently 
unlifts the covering. 

Who did "see Jesus" in Bethlehem? 



JESUS IN BETHLEHEM. 29 

We have already answered this 
question. Let us think over again 
who they all were. 

1. The Shepherds. Humble men in 
a lowly employment were those to 
whom Grod saw fit to send down his 
bright angels, to tell them that his 
Son had appeared as the world's Re- 
deemer. They went to Bethlehem, 
found the lowly birth-place of the 
Saviour, saw the babe with his 
mother and Joseph, and soon pub- 
lished abroad the wonder. 

Were they not happy men, those 
shepherds ? Surely they were favored 
men : whether they w r ere truly happy, 
truly blessed, depends on the question 
whether they learned to know and 
trust and love the Saviour whose in- 
fant form Mary showed to them. 

2. The Wise Men from the JEast 

a/ 

3* 



30 SEEING JESUS. 

These came from a very distant 
country — we do not know the precise 
place — where learned men watched 
the heavenly bodies very closely, and 
where probably something was known 
of the prophecies, and the expecta- 
tions founded upon them, among the 
Jews. For our Saviour was "the 
Desire of all nations. ,: People in 
many lands besides the land of Judea 
looked for a wonderful person, a 
teacher, a deliverer, a Saviour, to 
come from Grod about that time; and 
the most thoughtful and wise among 
them seem to have expected that he 
would appear among the people of 
Israel, whose wonderful history 
showed them to be the peculiar and 
chosen people of God. 

"The wise men" of whom Matthew 
tells us we may well believe to have 



JESUS tN BETHLEHEM. 31 

been men who prayed to the true God, 
r who diligently studied all that they 
had read of his word, and to w T hora 
he graciously made known the coming 
of his Son by a very remarkable star 
which they saw T in their sky at that 
time, and the peculiar motions of 
which led them to Judea, to Bethle- 
hem, and to the very spot where the 
infant "Kino- of the Jews" was with 
his virgin mother. 

They saw Jesus, and presented unto 
him gifts such as Eastern people 
give to kings — "gold and frankin- 
cense and myrrh." "They fell down 
and worshiped him also." Did they 
worship him as w r e do, as God? Or 
was it only that homage which in 
Eastern lands people pay to their 
human monarchs? Perhaps we can- 
not certainly know. But it seems to 



32 SEEING JESUS. 

me that Grocl would not bring them 
so far to see his Son without opening 
their minds and hearts to the true and 
saving knowledge of him. 

Were these all the persons who saw 
Jesus in Bethlehem? All, so far as 
we know, besides the two to whom he 
was nearest and dearest — his virgin 
mother and the "just man" to whom 
she was espoused, and who knew that 
her babe was "the Son of Grod.' : 
Strange, solemn and unspeakably de- 
lightful must have been the feelings 
of that good couple as they looked 
on their wonderful charge, as they 
watched over him, as thej^ held him, 
as she dressed and nursed him, and 
as they talked together or silently sat 
together, thinking that the Saviour of 
the world was now cared for, and was 
to be brought up by them. Blessed 



JESUS IN BETHLEHEM. 33 

among women was Mary ; and although 
so little is told us of Joseph, I know 
not another among all the men who 
have ever lived who is more to be 
honored than he. Surely God could 
not put upon a man any higher honor 
than to appoint him to be the guar- 
dian of her whom he would make 
the mother of the Christ — making him 
for that purpose such a just and con- 
siderate man as the virgin would then 
need to protect her. 

As we see Jesus in this way, chil- 
dren — see him with our minds — think 
just how Ave should have seen him 
if we had been there with the shep- 
herds — how ought we to feel toward 
him? 

Do you think that we need to pity 
him for being so poor? I do not think 
so. I do not think that a bed of sweet 



34 SEEING JESUS. 

hay, breathed on by innocent kine, and 
the faithful nursing of such a pure and 
simple and loving young woman as 
Mary, and the watchful care of such a 
prudent and good man as Joseph, were 
less fit for the infant Immanuel than 
the more splended provision and more 
pompous attendance which he might 
have had in a royal palace. 

It was not by becoming the child 
of such lowly persons, but by becom- 
ing a human child at all, that the Son 
of Grocl showed his amazing conde- 
scension. It is no real evil to be poor, 
if we are not made poor by idleness or 
by vice, and if in our poverty we are 
honest and industrious and contented, 
keeping our homes clean and tidy, 
and living in them with kindness and 
love to one another, as w r e are sure 
that Joseph and Mary did, and the 



JESUS IN BETHLEHEM. 35 

child Jesus, when they had taken him 
to their home in Nazareth. 

Do you not think that we ought to 
feel thankful to the Son of God for 
consenting thus to become the Son of 
man ? I do. I know of nothing more 
wonderful, nothing else that shows 
such kindness, as that He w r ho "was 
in the beginning with God, and who 
was God, v should consent to become a 
human babe, born of a human mother. 
To know that he did that for our sake 
— to be our brother, that he might 
save us and raise us up out of all our 
guilt and misery to his purity and 
his happiness and his eternal life — to 
know this ought, it seems to me, to fill 
our hearts w T ith such thankfulness as 
no w r ords and no songs can express. 

Such thankful and adoring love to 
the babe of Bethlehem, if God shall 



36 



SEEING JESUS. 



awaken it in your hearts, will (I am 
sure) help you to become such chil- 
dren as Jesus loves — such as the child 
Jesus himself was. 





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III. 

JESUS AT NAZARETH. 

" In the green fields of Palestine, 
By its fountains and its rills, 
And by the sacred Jordan's stream, 
And o'er the vine-clad hills, 

" Once lived and roved the fairest child 
That ever blessed the earth — 
The happiest, the holiest 
That e'er had human birth. 

" How beautiful his childhood was ! 
Harmless and undefiled ; 
Oh dear to his young mother's heart 
Was this pure, sinless child ! 

" Kindly in all his deeds and words, 
And gentle as the dove, 
Obedient, affectionate, 
His very soul was love. 
4 37 



38 



SEEING JESUS. 




" Oh is it not a blessed thought, 
Children of human birth, 
That once the Saviour was a child, 
And lived upon the earth ?" 

OULD you not like to 
"see Jesus" as he was in 
Nazareth, while his home 
was there, in the cottage 
of Joseph and Mary? It 
is only a little that the 
Bible tells us about that holy child- 
hood. We must believe that God did 
not think it best for us to have much 
or very particular information about 
it, else he would have given it to us 
in his Word. We must be content 
with what he has given, and must not 
try to be " wise above what is written.' 
Yet it is right for us to consider very 
attentively w r hat is written, and try to 
learn all that we can from it. 



JESUS AT NAZARETH. 39 

All that we know of Jesus' infancy 
is the account of his birth and being 
laid in a manger at Bethlehem, with 
the visit of the shepherds and the 
"wise men from the East;' : his cir- 
cumcision; the presentation of him in 
the temple, when Simeon and Anna 
saw him; the carrying of him into 
Egypt, to save him from Herod's 
cruelty; and the taking him to his 
parents' home in Nazareth of Galilee. 
In this place "he was brought up.' 
There he spent the years of his child- 
hood and youth, even until he was 
thirty years of ao*e — old enough to 
enter upon his public ministry. 

We may be quite sure that'he lived 
in a humble home, a lowly cottage. I 
do not, by any means, believe that it 
was a miserable or filthy hovel. 
There is not the slightest reason to 



40 SEEING JESUS. 

think that Joseph and Mary belonged 
to that class of poor people. Every 
allusion to them in the New Testa- 
ment gives me the impression that 
they were respectable and intelligent, 
and that by honest industry they 
lived comfortably. 

I have no doubt that Mary was the 
kind of virtuous woman whom Solo- 
mon praises in the thirty-first chapter 
of Proverbs — who "layeth her hands 
to the spindle, and whose hands hold 
the distaff,'' who could spin and w T eave 
and sew, as we would express it. I 
connot think of Jesus as ever going 
ragged or dirty about the streets of 
Nazareth, though I can easily think 
of his mother sitting up and mending 
his clothes by lamplight after he was 
asleep; and then I can easily think of 
her as laying aside the mended gar- 



JESUS AT XAZAEETH. 41 

raents, and taking down from the shelf 
the roll of parchment on which the 
books of the prophets were written, 
reading perhaps the words, "Unto us 
a child is born; unto us a son is 
given;' and those other words, "He 
was led as a lamb to the slaughter;' 
then leaning her head on her hand to 
think, remembering Gabriel's visit to 
her, when he hailed her as "highly 
favored among women ;" and those 
solemn words of the aged Simeon, 
about a sword that should pierce 
through her soul; then opening her 
eyes to look on the calm face of the 
fair young sleeper ; then softly step- 
ping to his bedside, silently kneeling, 
and tenderly, reverently gazing on 
him, pondering all these wonderful 
things in her heart. 

We know also that Joseph was a 

4* 



42 SEEING JESUS. 

carpenter, a man who "worked for his 
living,' and probably worked hard. 
As it was customary for every Jewish 
boy (even the sons of the rich) to 
learn a trade, and as in one place 
Jesus is called a "carpenter' 1 (Mark 
vi. 3), we may fairly conclude that 
Jesus learned the same trade and 
worked at it with Joseph. 

I am glad that it was in a humble 
home, the home of a poor man, that 
Jesus lived and grew up ; for I think 
it is easier for all classes of people to 
think rightly of him as their Saviour 
than if it had been in a kingly or 
lordly palace. 

We are equally sure that in that 
home he was always obedient to his 
parents. One of the very few things 
that are said of him is, that he "was 
subject unto them." This was after 



JESUS AT NAZARETH. 43 

he had gone to Jerusalem, when he 
was t\velv r e years old, and had aston- 
ished the learned doctors there by his 
knowledge of the Scriptures. I think 
it likely that this is mentioned by 
Luke (ii. 51) on purpose to prevent 
our supposing that a child of such ex- 
traordinary knowledge need not be 
subject to his parents. The example 
of Jesus teaches us that the more a 
boy really knows, the more dutiful 
and obedient to his parents is he 
likely to be. 

Aside from this particular state- 
ment, we might be sure that he who 
came to honor Grod's law by first per- 
fectly keeping it, and then by dying, 
an atoning sacrifice, to redeem those 
who had broken it, would be obedient 
to the commandment, " Honor thy fa- 
ther and thy mother." 



44 SEEING JESUS. 

jNTever, then, we may be sure, did 
Jesus disobey his parents ; never did 
he speak or act disrespectfully or un- 
dutifully toward them. 

We may be sure that this was so, 
not only while he was a little child, 
but when he grew older and larger, 
even up to his manhood, and as long 
as he lived in their house. Even after 
he became a public teacher and a 
worker of miracles, and quite down to 
the hour when he hung on the cross, 
we find that he was tender and re- 
spectful in his treatment of his mother, 
although he could not permit her, 
any more than any other human being, 
to control him in respect to anything 
belonoino- to his office and work as 
the Messiah of Grod. 

We may also be sure that Jesus 
diligently studied the Scriptures. 



JESUS AT NAZARETH. 45 

When he was only twelve years of 
age, you remember, he went up with 
his parents to Jerusalem ; and when 
thev had started for home with their 
neighbors and friends, they found 
after two or three days that Jesus had 
stayed behind. They went back and 
found him in the temple talking with 
the learned doctors there, and aston- 
ishing them by his questions and his 
answers to their questions. I suppose 
he showed a better understanding of 
the prophecies and of all parts of the 
Scriptures that had then been written 
than any of those rabbis had. I sup- 
pose, too, we are to understand that 
the child Jesus had learned this wis- 
dom by study, for \ve read that he 
" increased in wisdom and stature.' 
He became a real child ; he did not 
merely have a child's body, but a 



46 SEEING JESUS. 

child's mind. I cannot explain this, 
cannot understand it, but I believe it, 
because the Bible so plainly teaches 
it. I think of Jesus, then, when he 
was a child at Nazareth, as diligently 
studying the holy Scriptures. 

I have no doubt that he used to go 
to the synagogue every Sabbath-day 
with Mary and Joseph, nor that he 
listened very attentively when the 
portion of Scripture was read, and to 
any explanations that were given of 
it. I have no doubt that he learned 
to read, either at school or bv his mo- 
ther's teaching ; and I have no doubt 
that if we could have looked into that 
cottage, we might often have seen the 
little Jesus sitting or standing with 
the holy parchments unrolled before 
him, eagerly reading the words writ- 
ten by Moses, and David, and Isaiah, 



JESUS AT NAZAEETH. 47 

and those other holy men who " spake 
as they were moved by the Holy 
Ghost; 5 

He w r as a resolute, strong-spirited 
boy. The sweet song at the begin- 
ning of this discourse speaks of his 
kindness and gentleness and of his 
sinless purity. The same is tr.ue of 
many sweet songs that have been writ- 
ten about the childhood of Jesus ; 
and I sometimes am afraid that chil- 
dren may think so much of this gentle 
loveliness as to forget how r it is writ- 
ten that he " waxed strong in spirit" or 
fail to think what and how much that 
means. 

I do not believe that a braver boy 
ever climbed the hills of Galilee. I 
do not believe that a braver boy ever 
trod the earth than Jesus of Nazareth. 

His courage was very different from 



48 SEEING JESUS. 

that which leads a boy to challenge 
another to fight with him — a truer 
and nobler courage. Think of it, chil- 
dren. Do you believe that Jesus ever 
was afraid to do what he knew to be 
right? Do you think he could ever 
be kept from obeying his mother, or 
from doing any kind or right act, by 
the sneers or the threats of other boys 
or of girls ? 

You remember how resolutely he 
withstood all the devil's temptations 
in the wilderness after his baptism ; 
do you suppose that he was never 
tempted of Satan while he was a 
child? We do not know that Satan 
appeared to him bodily, but I suppose 
that Jesus was tempted in the same 
ways that you are ; and we are sure 
that he never yielded. Oh what a 
strong, brave spirit was that ! 



JESUS AT NAZAKETH. 49 

Boys, if really you " want to be like 
Jesus/ you must not only try to be 
gentle and sweet-tempered, but "strong 
in spirit" — fearlessly ready to under- 
take any difficult duty — ready to un- 
dergo any self- denial for the sake 
of doing good, and resolute to resist 
all manner of persuasions and temp- 
tations to sin. 

How can you become so? (1) By be- 
lieving in Jesus, and (2) by then con- 
stantly striving to become like him, 
always praying for the help of his 
Spirit to make you so. 

1. Believe in him. Take him for 
your real Saviour. 

In order to this you have to think 
of him not merely as a child. Think 
of him as you know him to be — as the 
Jjamb of Grod, Son of Glod, the Re- 



50 SEEING JESUS. 

deemer of lost souls. Confess your 
guilt to him. Acknowledge your need 
of him. Thankfully take him as the 
Saviour of your soul, just as he kindly 
offers to be. 

Then remember that he became not 
only a man, but a child, and that he 
knows just what help you need to fol- 
low him — to be his disciple now, while 
you are a child. Ask him daily for 
that help ; daily expect to have it; and 
daily strive to live, with that help, as 
the child Jesus lived. 

He can make you gentle, obedient, 
truthful and fearless in right-doing, 
gentle and lovely, and at the same 
time strong in spirit, and growing 
more and more like that fairest, hap- 
piest, holiest child that ever had hu- 
man birth. 



IV. 



JESUS AT THE JORDAN. 




[Matt. iii. ; John i.] 



FTER the visit of Jesus 
to Jerusalem, u when he 
was twelve vears old,' 

mi 

we have no account 
whatever of him until 
he had grown to full 
manhood- -until he was about thirty 
vears of age. Then he was to begin 
his public ministry, working miracles 
and preaching the good news of the 
kingdom of heaven. 

To prepare the way for this, John 
was sent before him. He was a little 
older than Jesus, and was the son of 

51 



52 SEEING JESUS. 

Elizabeth, a cousin to Jesus' mother. 
He was very much like the prophet 
Elijah of the Old Testament, and was 
the person intended in the Old Testa- 
ment prophecy, which said that Eli- 
jah should come again. He came " in 
the spirit and power of Elijah," calling 
upon the people to repent — that is, to 
turn from their sins — and so to prepare 
the way for " the kingdom of heaven, r 
which was " at hand" — that kingdom 
of truth and holiness which Jesus, the 
Christ, was about to establish in the 
world. 

Very many people went out into the 
wilderness of Juclea, where John 
preached, to hear him, and to the 
river Jordan, where he baptized them 
as the sign of their putting away 
their sins. 

One day, while John was there at 



JESUS AT THE JOED AN. 53 

the Jordan preaching and baptizing, 
Jesus came to him to be baptized. 

It is not easy for us to understand 
why Jesus should be baptized, as cer- 
tainly he had no sins to repent of. 
Perhaps it was because he "was made 
sin for us, r or was put in the place of 
us sinners, that it was proper for him 
to receive the sign of the washing 
awav of sins. At anv rate, we may 
know that it was proper, or it would 
not have been done. We know from 
what he said to John, that that was 
the way " to fulfill all righteousness." 

At first, John was unwilling to bap- 
tize Jesus. He felt unworthy to do it 
— unworthy (as he said) even to untie 
his shoes. But when Jesus assured 
John that it was right, and was his 
will, John obeyed. We should never 
let our sense of unworthiness prevent 

5* 



54 SEEING JESUS. 

us from doing anything which Jesus 
commands. 

So John and Jesus went down the 
bank of Jordan together, or else Jesus 
came down to John, who was already 
standing in the river or at its edge, 
and John baptized him. I do not 
know how he did it — whether he took 
hold of his arms, and, leaning him 
gently backward, plunged his whole 
body under the water, as baptism is 
now sometimes administered ; or 
whether, lifting some of the water in 
his hands or in a cup, John poured 
it on the head of Jesus, bowed meeklv 
before him ; or whether, simply wet- 
ting his hand in the water of Jordan, 
he reverently laid it on the head of 
Jesus or allowed some drops to drip 
from his fingers upon him. 

I do not see that it is of the least 



JESUS AT THE JOBDAST. 55 

consequence to know how it was done, 
any more than to know the size and 
shape of the loaf at the Last Supper, or 
of the pieces into which it was broken. 
In some way Jesus was baptized, or 
solemnly washed in water of the Jor- 
dan by John the Baptist ; and John 
consented to do this in obedience to 
Jesus, and on his assurance that that 
was the way for them "to fulfill all 
righteousness." 

When the baptism was finished, we 
are told that Jesus " went up straight- 
way out of the w T ater; and lo, the 
heavens were opened unto him, and 
he saw the Spirit of God descending 
like a dove and lighting upon him." 
- 'And lo, a voice from heaven, saying, 
This is my beloved Son, in whom I am 
well pleased." 

So, in the beginning of our Lord's 



56 SEEING JESUS. 

public life, God the Father solemnly 
and publicly declared him to be his 
Son, in whom he was well pleased ; 
and you know, my young readers, that 
when his life was finished and he had 
died on the cross, God gave still 
stronger assurance of being satisfied 
with his w r hole work by raisins; him 
from the dead and placing him at his 
own right hand on high. 

Does it seem to you that you would 
like to have been there at the Jordan 
when Jesus was baptized, to have seen 
his holy form coming up the bank of 
the river, to have seen the heavenly 
dove descending, and to have heard 
that voice of God coming down out of 
the sky? 

It seems so to me, and yet, on the 
whole, I think I would rather be here 
now than to have been there then. 



JESUS AT THE JORDAN. 5 



M 



With the whole ]\ T ew Testament to 
read, making us know all that Jesus 
did and suffered for us after he was 
baptized, and with all we know of 
what his religion has done in the 
world in all the eighteen hundred 
years since, I think that we can with 
our minds see Jesus at his baptism, 
and hear the voice of God declaring 
him to us, quite as effectually as we 
could have done if we had stood on 
the banks of Jordan and heard and 
seen with our bodily senses. We 
know that that Divine Spirit that 
hovered in dove-like form over the 
head of Jesus, and settled down so 
beautifully upon him, hovers invisibly 
over you and settles down as gently 
on each of your hearts, if you do not 
by levity, or by obstinacy, or by some 
kind of sin, drive him away. 



58 SEEING JESUS. 

I suppose that it must have been 
not many days after the baptism of 
Jesus that those things took place of 
which we are told in the first chapter 
of the Gospel by John : 

" John seeth Jesus coming to him, 
and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, 
that taketh awav the sin of the 
world!" 

"Again, the next day after, John 
stood, and two of his disciples; and 
looking upon Jesus as he walked, he 
saith, Behold the Lamb of God!' 

Think what "the Lamb of God' 
would mean to the Jewish people 
to whom John was speaking! They 
had all read the book of Isaiah ; they 
had all heard many times in the syn- 
agogues that solemn passage in which 
the prophet says, "He is brought as a 
lamb to the slaughter, and as'a sheep 



JESUS AT THE JORDAN. 59 

before her shearers is dumb, so he 
opened not his mouth. ' Probably most 
of them had seen the shearers seize a 
sheep and compel her to lie quietly 
down while they stripped her of her 
fleece; and probably all of them had 
seen lambs slaughtered for food and 
also for sacrifice. They were very 
familiar with this religious use of 
them. Thev knew that when the 
lamb was slain at the altar, when its 
red blood stained the pavement and 
its dead flesh was burnt on the altar, 
this was a part of Grocl's method of 
forgiving their sins. They had to do 
this in obedience to God, in order to 
obtain the forgiveness of their sins. 

I do not suppose that they all under- 
stood how those sacrifices foreshowed 
the one great sacrifice of Christ; but 
now, when Jesus had come and the 



60 SEEIXG JESUS. 

time was near when that great sacri- 
fice of himself was to be offered on 
the cross, John made that solemn 
declaration. "See,' said he, "that 
holy man from Galilee, whom I bap- 
tized the other clay, and on whom the 
Holy Spirit visibly descended; lo, he 
is the Lamb of God. It will be the 
shedding of his blood that is to make 
the real expiation for your sins, to 
which the sacrifices of dumb animals 
have always been pointing forward. 
He is to be sacrificed for you." 

My children, I think this has been 
made plainer to you than it was to 
those who heard John speak. You 
all know that Jesus died to save you, 
and that he is able and willing to 
save you just now. 

If he were present with you bodily 
to-day — if a human form more majes- 



JESUS AT THE JOED AN. 61 

tic than you ever saw before were to 
come and stand before you — if he were 
looking upon you with a face of heav- 
enly beauty beaming with grace and 
truth — if from the sky above a dove- 
like form, glorious with heavenly light, 
were to descend and light upon him, 
and a clear voice from the heaven 
were to say, " This is my beloved Son" — 
if then your minister should say to 
you, " Behold the Lamb of Grod, that 
taketh away the sins of the world," 
what would you do? Is there one of 
you who would not bow before him 
and cry, u O Lamb of Grod, save me, 
even me?" 

Then is there one of you who will 
not now bow to him (for he is with 
you though you see him not) and offer 
that same earnest prayer? 

I do assure you, children, that that 



62 SEEING JESUS. 

Blessed One is with you now, just as 
able and just as ready to hear and save 
as if he were bodily before you. 

Behold the Lamb of God! Look 
unto Jesus. Ask him to save you 
now — just now — and believe that he 
does save you. "Only believe.' 1 




w$r, 



Y. 



NICODEMUS' VISIT TO JESUS. 




[John iii.] 

ICODEMUS was one of 
the learned men of his 
time. He belonged to 
that sect which was pe- 
culiarly strict in religious 
observances — the same to 
which Paul had belonged before he 
believed in Jesus, before he learned 
how vain it is for sinful men to trv to 
commend themselves to God by any 
righteousness or works of their own. 

Why do you suppose that Mcode- 
mus "came to Jesus by night?" I 
think it is generally supposed that he 

63 



64 SEEING JESUS. 

was a timid, cautious man — that he 
did not wish to have it known that he 
went to see Jesus, lest the other Pha- 
risees should hate him and persecute 
him. He may also have been proud, 
ashamed to have it known that he, a 
learned Pharisee, went to seek instruc- 
tion from a poor Galilean carpenter. 
I suspect that there were some such 
feelings in Mcodemus' mind. It 
would not be very strange if he had 
some such pride and some such timid- 
ity. He would not on that account 
be very different from many people 
that are alive now. 

But there are some who think that 
the reason for his coming at night was 
a much better one — that it was simply 
because the Master was so much oc- 
cupied in the day-time, and had so 
many people around him, that Nic- 



NICODEMUS' VISIT TO JESUS. 65 

odemus could not then find such an 
opportunity as he wanted — that he was 
modest and kind, unwilling to crowd 
others away, unwilling to overburden 
the Master, and desirous of finding 
him alone and at leisure, so that he 
could sit down and have a good quiet 
talk with him, telling him the things 
which perplexed him, and asking him 
all the questions that he wished to 
ask, and hearing his answers and ex- 
planations without any interruption 
and without the uncomfortable feeling 
that he was in the way of any one 
else. 

This may have been so, and when we 
recollect how well Nicodemus spoke for 
Jesus afterward in the Jewish council,* 
and how generously he joined with 
Joseph of Arimathea in giving him 

* John vii. 50, 51. 
6* 



66 SEEING JESUS. 

an honorable and costly burial after 
he was crucified,* it is quite pleasant 
to believe that he was influenced by 
good and honorable motives when he 
first "came to Jesus by night." 

And yet we must not think it cer- 
tain that even a generous and honor- 
able man may not sometimes act too 
timicllv or even selfishly. The best 
men and the best children are not 
uniformly and consistently good. We 
must not think it necessary to make 
out entire consistency in all the con- 
duct of the persons we read of in the 
Bible, or of those with whom we are 
acquainted in our own time. 

We will not try to study into the 
motives of Nicodemus any farther, 
and will be content not to know them, 
being very sure that Jesus knew them 

* John xix. 39, 40. 



. M 



NICODEMUS VISIT TO JESUS. 67 

perfectly. When he looked into jNTio 
odemus' eyes, he looked right down 
into his heart, and so he does into 
your hearts and mine. 

I have suggested that perhaps Mc- 
odemus wished to see Jesus alone, 
even apart from his disciples ; but I 
am not at all sure of this. He may 
have been quite willing to talk with 
him in the midst of the twelve, who 
believed in him, and who would have a 
friendly sympathy with Nicodemus in 
all his inquiries, and would sit in re- 
spectful silence while he asked their 
Master questions, and would listen 
with him to the wise and instructive 
answers. Peter may have been there, 
with 'that white head and eager face 
which the painters give him in pic- 
tures, leaning far forward in earnest 
attention. John may have been there, 



68 SEEING JESUS. 

with that mild, heavenly look which 
they give him; and Matthew the pub- 
lican, and Andrew and Philip, and 
more or less of the others. If so, I 
have no doubt that they were all silent 
and solemnlv attentive to that won- 
derful conversation, and did not in- 
terrupt it by any word or any move- 
ment of theirs. 

After all, it seems to me at least 
quite as likely that Mcodemus and 
Jesus were entirely alone, or that only 
the beloved disciple w r as present who 
has recorded the interview. If he was 
not, I suppose that JNTicodemus told 
him about it before he wrote his 
Gospel. That may have been after 
the Master had died and risen and 
ascended ; and John's conversation 
with him, and his telling John how 
he had learned about the new birth 



NICODEMUS VISIT TO JESUS. 69 

from his Master, may have been the 
occasion of John's mentioning uNTic- 
oclemus three different times in his 
Gospel. 

So, when you think of Jesus talk- 
ing with JNTicoclemus, you may think 
of them with several of the disciples 
sitting silently around, or with only 
the lovely and thoughtful John meekly 
and attentively listening, or quite by 
themselves apart from all human 
beings. We do not certainly know 
which way it was, and God has not 
meant that we should know. • 

Just so may any one of you learn 
what the new birth is, and may ex- 
perience it, w 7 hile you sit among many 
others listening to a sermon; or in 
your Sunday-school class, with live or 
six others around your teacher; when 
you are alone with your mother or 



70 SEEING JESUS. 

your pastor; or when you are alone 
with Jesus, as you kneel in your 
chamber ; or while vou lie in bed after 
your mother has put out the light, 
and said "good-night," and gone down 
stairs; andyou know that Jesusis there, 
awake and attentive, and asking you 
then to be his disciple and to trust 
vour soul to him. 

This visit of N'icodemus to Jesus is 
important to us, because of what Je- 
sus said to him about the new birth : 
"Ye must be born again;" "Except 
a^ man be born again, he cannot see 
the kingdom of God." 1 

Mcodemus, with all his learning, 
did not easily understand this ; and I 
think that Jesus left him to feel, and 
leaves us to feel, that there is something 
about it that cannot be understood bv 
the human mind. Ah! children, 



NICODEMUS' VISIT TO JESUS. 71 

these are some excellent and import- 
ant things which we can experience 
and enjoy, without fully understanding 
them ourselves or being able to ex- 
plain them to others. But God. by 
his Spirit, will make you understand 
all that is necessary of this great mys- 
tery, and all the mysteries of the 
Christian life, if you only will humbly 
ask him and trust him. 

What our Lord says to JNlcodemus 
shows plainly that the new birth is 
very different from the natural birth ; 
and vet it is enough like it to be call- 
ed by the same name. You know that 
our Lord generally spoke in parables, 
that is, he used comparisons. When 
he wished to explain anything in " the 
kingdom of heaven," he used to com- 
pare it with something in this world — 
something that his hearers knew or 



72 SEEING JESUS. 

saw. He would say, " the kingdom 
of heaven is like" to something: 
"like to a mustard-seed," "like unto 
leaven," " like a net,' : etc. — generally 
some very common and familiar thing 
well known to his disciples. 

He taught Nicodemus, and he 
teaches you, that becoming a Christian 
is like being born. 

What is it to be lorn? You all 
have birth-days. Many of you cele- 
brate them ; your parents and friends 
give you presents ; perhaps you make 
a little party for your friends. It is a 
joyful day. You say, " Now I am six 
years old — or nine — or twelve.' what- 
ever the number may be. So many 
years ago you were born. Nothing else 
that has ever happened to you seems 
so important — nothing else is so im- 
portant, except being " born again" 



NICODEMUS' VISIT TO JESUS. 73 

What is that important thing ? It is 
beginning to live. The day in which you 
were born was the first clay of your 
life. Before that, day and night, the 
world and heaven were nothing to you, 
for you ivere not. Then first you 
breathed this air. Then first you gave 
a feeble cry, by which your mother 
knew that you were alive — knew that 
God had not only made vour bodv 

ml «/ ' v 

perfect in its form and in all its parts 
and members, but had breathed into it 
the breath of life and you had become 
a living soul. Then first you lay in 
that mother's arms, were cherished, 
and warmed, and fed at her breast;, 
then first she looked fondly on you ; 
and then all that belongs to life in this 
world, with all its joys and all its en- 
dearments and all its hopes, began. 
Can you understand how it began ?' 



74 SEEING JESUS. 

I cannot. Seven times such a new life 
has begun in my own home. Seven 
times I have heard that first faint cry 
by which I have known that God had 
given me a living child. I have felt 
all the father's joy for it, and I have 
also felt at those times that God him- 
self had come into my house to do a 
wonderful thing, and to give me and 
mine a wonderful gift. Nothing else 
in this world is so wonderful as life — 
to be alive — to be a living soul. To 
beo'in to be alive is to be born. JNTo 
wonder that children and their pa- 
rents celebrate their birth-days — the 
days on which they began to live. 

Perhaps it is to make us all feel 
this more deeply and more thankfully 
that sometimes God forms the perfect 
body of a child as fair and as perfect 
and as beautiful as any, and does not 






NICODEMUS' VISIT TO JESUS. 75 



make it alive — does not give it breath. 
It never utters a cry. The light never 
enters its eyes. Its perfect limbs and 
features are still as marble. It does 
not begin to live. Its disappointed pa- 
rents can only look sorrowfully on its 
little lifeless form, and then let their 
friends take it away and bury it. It 
is when we remember that this some- 
times happens that we feel how great 
and wonderful a thing it is to be made 
alive — that when each of us lay, such 
a newly-formed little infant body, God 
did make us alive, did " breathe into 
us the breath of life." God did this 
for each of us. 

Just as God only could make you 
alive, so he only can make you a 
Christian. Your pastor cannot do it. 
Your Sunday-school teacher cannot. 
Your parents cannot. Your pastor 



76 SEEING JESUS. 

can baptize you. Your parents and 
Siindav-school teachers can instruct 
you. We can show, and help you to 
put on, all the outside appearances of 
Christianity; so can a mother or a 
nurse wash the body of her babe in 
pure water, and perfume it with sweet 
odors, and dress it in beautiful white 
garments, fit almost for an angel; but 
ah ! she cannot make it alive. Unless 
God does that, she has washed it and 
dressed it and perfumed it for its 
coffin, for its burial. 

So your baptism, and your Bible, 
and your Sunday-school lessons, and 
all that we can teach you or do for 
you, will be of no use, unless God the 
Holy Spirit give you that new life, 
the beginning of which is being born 
again. 

Has he, dear reader, done that for 



NICODEMUS' VISIT TO JESUS. 77 

you? If not, does he in this stillness 
do it even now for 3 7 ou? We cannot 
tell how he does it, any more than we 
can tell whence the wind comes or 
whither it goes when we hear the 
sound of it, or any more than we can 
tell how the breath comes to make 
alive the new infant's body. 

But we know that this life-giving 
breath has come when we hear the 
infant's cry, when we see its open 
eyes, when it tosses about its tiny 
arms, and afterward when we find it 
growing and becoming stronger and 
fairer, and looking and acting more 
and more like a living child day by 
day. 

So, if you are born again, if the 
new, the Christian life has begun in 
you, God hears your soul's cry, which 
is prayer — real, honest prayer — the 

7* 



78 SEEING JESUS. 

real, earnest wish going up to God 
for pardon and for peace and for 
purity, such as only he can give. 

There will also be a desire for learn- 
ing his truth — "the sincere milk of 
the Word," as Peter calls it. You will 
love his word as an infant loves its 
mother's milk. If this new life is 
begun in you, you will dislike sin. 
You will be sorry for your sins and 
wish to be rid of them. 

And more and more, as this new 
life goes on, you will increase in love 
to Christ, and trust in him and obe- 
dience to him. 

Has God any children among these? 
I cannot tell, but he can ; and I will 
hope that he sees some among you 
whose hearts do truly pray and do 
truly love and trust Jesus. And may 
I not hope that even now, while you 



NICODEMUS VISIT TO JESUS. 



79 



read of the new birth, you feel your 
heart going up to him in earnest 
prayer, and in tender sorrow for your 
sins, and in real love to Jesus; so that 
he, looking on your heart as he can, 
sees that it is changed — that you are 
born again? 




VI. 




maria 



JESUS AT SYCHAK. 

NCE in our Saviour's life- 
time upon earth he was 
journeying from Judea, the 
southern province of Pales- 
tine, into Galilee, its north- 
ern province, through Sa- 
which lies directly between 
them. 

The people of Samaria were de- 
scended from remnants of the ten 
tribes of Israel which revolted from 
Rehoboam, mixed with people who 
migrated from Babylonish provinces, 
after a Babylonish king had conquered 
the country and carried away captive 

80 



JESUS AT SYCHAR. 81 

a large part of its former inhabitants. 
The mixed population that thus in- 
habited Samaria had a mixed religion ; 
that is, they had greatly corrupted 
the religion which Moses taught them 
by mixing with it a great deal of error 
and superstition from the idolatrous 
religions of the nations from which 
some of them had come. 

Manv wars had been waged between 
them and the people of Judah, of 
which we read in the Old Testament 
history; and in the time of our Lord, 
although they were under the same 
imperial government of Rome, the 
people of the two provinces were very 
much opposed to each other. 

So, although Jesus would some- 
times be traveling through Samaria 
with his disciples, they could not 
expect to have any pleasant and 



82 SEEING JESUS. 

friendly intercourse with the people 
along the wav. 

Our Lord in his journey, at the 
time we speak of, had come near to 
the citv which at that time was called 
Svchar, but which we read of in the 
Old Testament by the name of 
Shechem. 

Near to this citv was a famous well, 
called "Jacob's Well;" and it was a 
matter of much interest to the people 
to think that the patriarch Jacob had 
owned that well so many hundred 
years before that day, and that water 
was drawn from it for him and his 
family, and for their flocks and herds. 
So doubtless we should feel a great 
deal of interest in a well if we knew 
of one at which Washington or 
Christopher Columbus in his lifetime 
used to drink. 







Jesus at the Well. 



Seeing Jesus. 



Page 83. 



JESUS AT SYCHAR. 8 



*> 



" Jesus therefore being wearied with 
his journey, sat thus on the well." 

Cannot you "see Jesus" sitting 
there? His garments are dusty, and 
his soiled sandals show that he has 
been walking a weary way, and he 
looks altogether like a tired traveler. 

He is alone, for the disciples who 
journeyed with him have gone away 
into the city to buy food. "Meat " in 
the Bible means any kind of food. 

While Jesus is thus sitting alone 
by the well there comes a woman of 
the city to draw water. After she had 
let down her water- pot or jar by a 
cord into the well, and had drawn it 
up full, Jesus asked her to let him 
drink. Probably neither of them had 
spoken till then, and we do not know 
whether the woman had taken much 
notice of Jesus. But now when he 



84 SEEING JESUS. 

has asked her for a drink of the cool 
water she has drawn from the deep 
w r ell, she looks at him with surprise, 
and expresses her astonishment that 
a Jewish man should ask such a favor 
of her, a Samaritan woman. 

How little did the poor woman know 
the person to whom she spoke ! To 
her eye he was a Jew — one of a hated 
people, between whom and her people 
there was contempt and enmity. She 
little thought that he was the Son of 
Man, belonging alike to people of all 
nations as their great Friend and Sa- 
viour, and the Son of God, his " only 
begotten and well-beloved,' who had 
come down from him to redeem a lost 
world, and who would return to sit 
again at his right hand, in power and 
glory unspeakable. 

Observe how meekly and yet how 



JESUS AT SYCHAE. 85 

grandly the Lord replies : " If thou 
knewest the gift of God, and who he 
is that saith to thee, Give me to drink, 
thou wouldst have asked of him, and 
he would have given thee living water." 

The woman wonders how he could 
get such " living water," thinking of 
none but such as she has just drawn, 
and seeing that he has " nothing to 
draw with " — perhaps thinking also, 
there could not an v where be found 
better or more refreshing water than 
that from Jacob's well. 

But Jesus lets her know that what 
he is able to give is much better than 
the water which refreshes our bodies 
and relieves us from the pain of thirst. 
It is something which relieves and 
blesses our souls, as cool water relieves 
and refreshes our bodies, and which, 
when we receive it, will bless us al- 

8 



86 SEEING JESUS. 

ways, being a well of water or a foun- 
tain of happiness within us, " spring- 
ing up unto everlasting life." 

I presume that John has recorded 
only a part of what our Lord said to 
the woman, and afterward to her 
friends whom she called from the city. 
We know, from what is said in other 
places of the Bible, compared with 
what is here, that water, in Scripture, 
stands for the spiritual good which 
Christ bestows upon those who believe 
on him ; and it is very pleasant to find 
that many of the people of Sychar did, 
at that time, so listen to his preaching 
and so believe that they received that 
spiritual and saving good into their 
souls. 

What is that spiritual and saving 
good which Jesus called " living 
water," and which he said should 



JESUS AT SYCHAR. 87 

" spring up unto everlasting life," in 
those who should receive it from 
him. 

1. It is the pardon of our sins. Is 
not the feeling of guilt something like 
the feeling of thirst — a very painful 
feeling which makes us uneasv, un- 
comfortable, perhaps irritable ? At 
any rate, thirst is a feeling which can 
only be relieved by water or by some 
other cool drink. So the guilty feeling- 
is very uncomfortable, and it can only 
be relieved by pardon. The assurance 
that our sins are forgiven by one who 
has power (or a right) to forgive re- 
lieves us as pleasantly as a good 
draught of cold water relieves us from 
thirst. 

Truly, Jesus who died for our sins, 
and who can and does pardon our 
sins, gives us that which to our un- 



88 SEEING JESUS. 

happy, guilty souls is very much like 
water from a deep cold well to our 
bodies when suffering from thirst and 
weariness. 

2. Help to leave off sinning. We 
are taught to ask for the Holy Spirit 
to dwell in our hearts, and to purify 
them from evil by his gracious power. 
But not only are Christ and the Holy 
Spirit two persons of the One God, 
but we are also taught that Christ's 
work for us procured the Holy Spirit ; 
and when Christ went away from the 
world after his painful work of re- 
deeming it, he sent down the Holy 
Spirit to be w T ith those who believe on 
him.* 

We do no wrong then to the blessed 
Spirit, our Divine Comforter and Sanc- 
tifier, when we speak of Christ as giv- 

* John vii. 39. 



JESUS AT SYCHAR. 89 

ing us, through the Holy Spirit, help 
to leave off sinning. 

I know that there are some chil- 
dren who long for this as they would 
for cold water if they were thirsty. 
You not only wish to be pardoned for 
the sins which you have already done, 
but you wish to be rid of sin, to be 
helped to leave off sinning. This is 
just what Jesus does for us if we ask 
him and trust him. 

" I cannot feel thee touch my hand 

With pressure light and mild, 
To check me as my mother did, 

When I was but a child ; 
But I have felt thee in my thoughts, 

Fighting with sin for me ; 
And when my heart loves God, I know 

The sweetness is from thee." 

This help to leave off sinning, which 
you all so much need, and which some 
of you so much desire, is just what 

8* 



90 SEEING JESUS. 

the Lord Jesus gives, and loves to 
give, to those who ask him for it and 
expect it of him, "Ask, and ye shall 
receive." 

3. The comfort of hope. It is very 
painful to be afraid; it is dreadful to 
look forward without anything good 
to hope for. A despairing look is the 
most miserable that we ever see on 
the face of a man, or woman, or child; 
and this is because despair is the most 
miserable feeling that can be in any 
one's heart. 

But what else can so light up a 
human face as hope? 

Hope in the heart shines through 
the face. Hope is one of the very 
best parts of happiness. 

But what other hope is there like 
that of the Christian — that which 
Christ gives? The hope of heaven! 



JESUS AT SYCHAR. 91 

the hope of eternal life! This is 
yours, children, if you give yourselves 
to Jesus in love and trust; and will 
not the continual refreshment of this 
be in you "a well of water springing 
up unto everlasting life?" 

Dear children, seeing Jesus now 
sitting wearjr and thirsty at the well 
of Sychar, hearing his gracious words 
to the woman of Samaria, will not you 
believe on him? Will not you trust 
yourselves to him, and ask and re- 
ceive his "living water" — pardon of 
your sins, help to leave off sinning, 
and the blessed hope of everlasting 
life? 

Every one of you may have all this, 
all this relief and refreshment and 
blessed hope, now and always. 



VII. 



JESUS AT NAZAKETH AGAIN. 




[Luke iv. 16-30.] 

HEN Jesus had come 
again into Galilee, going 
thither through Samaria, 
after his baptism and 
temptation in the wilder^ 
ness of Judea, he was one 
Sabbath-day at Nazareth, the village 
in which he had passed his childhood. 
He went to the synagogue — that is, 
the place of worship. This was his 
custom always, wherever he might be. 
He had already become quite 
famous, and you can easily see that 

92 



JESUS AT NAZARETH AGAIN. 93 

the people of that village, being met 
in the synagogue, would take much 
notice of their celebrated townsman 
coming in among them. It appears 
that he did not go and take his seat 
among the people, but with those who 
conducted the services. A very im- 
portant part of those services consisted 
in reading the Scriptures. It is said 
that they had the whole of the five 
books of Moses divided into so many 
portions that there was one for each 
Sabbath of the year; and portions of 
the prophets and other Scriptures were 
also read. 

It seems that Jesus was the reader 
for that day. Whether they asked 
him to be so, or he took the office upon 
him of his own accord, we do not know. 
It is evident that they were willing 
and considered it proper that he should 



94 SEEING JESUS. 

read, for the book was given to him, 
and it was the book or roll that con- 
tained the prophecies of Isaiah. 

The place which he read, as we have 
it divided into chapters in our Bible, 
was the sixty-first chapter, and is one 
of the most interesting and beautiful 
prophetic descriptions of the Messiah. 
When he had read the passage, he 
gave the book from which he had 
read back into the hand of the 
"minister" — (that was not the 
preacher, but the man who took care 
of the synagogue and the things in it 
— somewhat as our sexton does) and 
"sat down." 

See Jesus, children, as he sits down 
before that congregation of his old 
neighbors, who have known him all 
his life, and known him as a humble 
and obscure laborer's child, growing 



JESUS AT NAZABETH AGALST. 95 

up as himself a humble laborer. 
Lately he has been gone from among 
them — gone to Judea, to Jerusalem — 
and they have heard very wonderful 
things of his saying and doing there, 
and in other places. There probably 
has been much talk in Nazareth about 
him whom they called Joseph's son; 
and now T that he has come home to 
them, and come to the synagogue, and 
they have heard him read that beau- 
tiful and wonderful passage of Scrip- 
ture, as he sits down it is no wonder 
that all their eyes are " fastened upon 
him." His sitting down is according 
to their custom, different from ours. 
Reading the w r ord of Grod, to which 
they w^ould show every mark of re- 
spect, they always stood up; but one 
who was going to explain the Scrip- 
tures or give religious instruction 



96 SEEING JESUS. 

used to do so sitting, as professors and 
teachers with us do in their class- 
rooms. 

So Jesus sits down in the synagogue 
after reading from Isaiah, and ex- 
plains what that prophecy means : 
"This day is this Scripture fulfilled 
in your ears.' He lets them know 
that he himself is the person of whom 
the prophet spoke — that he is the 
great Deliverer, and Healer, and 
Saviour of miserable, oppressed, 
ruined mankind. How long he spoke, 
or how largely he explained that truth 
to them, we do not know. It is not 
likely that Luke wrote all that he 
said, but he spoke in such a way that 
they "all wondered at the gracious 
words that proceeded out of his 
mouth." 

As he goes on, however, to unfold 



JESUS AT NAZAKETH AGAIN. 97 

his claims further, and to declare 
God's sovereign way of dealing with 
men, they become displeased, and at 
length furiously angry, and suddenly 
rushing upon him, they hurry him 
out of the city toward a precipice, in 
order to throw him down and kill 
him. He does not let this succeed, for 
the time has not yet come for him to 
die, but passes among them and es- 
capes. 

It is not easy perhaps to see exactly 
what it was that made them so angry, 
though it was something in his dis- 
course; and it shows us that God's own 
truth, rightly explained by One who 
could make no mistakes, did then 
make men dreadfully angry. It has 
probably happened many times that 
men have become angry at the truth 
of God rightly and faithfully preach- 

9 

/ 



98 SEEING JESUS. 

ed, without the fault of the preacher, 
though doubtless it may happen by 
the fault of a preacher—any other 
preacher except the Lord Jesus and 
the apostles infallibly inspired. 

But though we wonder and grieve 
that the people of Nazareth should so 
foolishly and wickedly reject the Sa- 
viour whom God has sent to them, de- 
spising him because he has beep, a 
poor child and man in the midst of 
them, and refusing to be convinced by 
his w r onderful works and words, let 
us attend to those u gracious words,' 
and try to improve them as if we now 
heard them " proceeding out of his 
mouth." 

1. Seeing Jesus, w r e see the great De- 
liverer of mankind from their mis- 
eries. 

" To bind up the broken-hearted "— 



JESUS AT NAZARETH AGAIN". 99 

" to proclaim liberty to the captives " 
— to proclaim "good tidings to the 
meek," is his mission ; for this he is 
u sent 1 Very much like this is it 
when he says, " Come unto me, all ye 
that labor and are heavy laden.' 1 He 
comes as the friend of all the lowly, 
all the down-trodden, all the sorrow- 
ful. He comes to soothe, to heal, to 
comfort. More grandly in our time 
than in all times before is he fulfilling 
this great mission. 

The chains of bondage are stricken 
off from more hands, and the prison- 
doors of slavery are opened to more 
captives, in our time than ever before. 
Alexander, the great emperor of Rus- 
sia, and our own noble President Lin- 
coln proclaimed liberty to many mil- 
lions of slaves. But did they do this 
great work? — Alexander and Lin- 



100 SEEING JESUS. 

coin? They did it only as instru- 
ments in the hand of God. When 
President Lincoln received a petition 
from a great number of children, 
praying him to emancipate all children 
that were slaves, he wrote to the wo- 
man who had sent the petition, " Tell 
those little people I am glad that they 
have such good and kind sentiments ; 
and although I have not power to 
do what they ask, I wish them to re- 
member that God has, and that it ap- 
pears to be his will to do it." 

Yes, our dear President felt that 
God was doing this great and wonder- 
ful thing, and that he was only an in- 
strument in God's hands. It is God 
our Saviour, our Bible teaches us, ex- 
alted to the mediatorial throne, who 
rules the w r orld. He is proclaiming 
liberty to the captives. He is direct- 



JESUS AT NAZARETH AGAIN. 101 

ing the great and wonderful and fear- 
ful movements, which, we may well 
believe, will not cease until every 
human fetter not only in our country, 
but in all the world, shall have been 
broken in pieces. 

You know also, children, that when- 
ever the Gospel of Jesus has been re- 
ceived, and just in proportion as it 
has had effect, efforts are made for the 
relief of all kinds of human misery. 
Poverty, sickness, orphanage, every 
form of suffering and want among 
men, the followers of Jesus seek to 
relieve. Nothing else so much as his 
word and his example, operating in 
the lives of his followers, binds up 
the broken-hearted and comforts those 
that mourn. 

2. Seeing Jesus, we see the only One 
who can relieve and deliver us from 

9* 



102 SEEING JESUS. 

the sin and misery in which we are. 
You, my clear children, are not all 
orphans — you are not all poor — you 
are not slaves. You have freedom 
and comfort and security under a 
good government, because the truth 
of Christ made your ancestors free 
many generations back, and these 
great gifts of Christianity have been 
handed down to you from those an- 
cestors. You should not forget that 
your temporal happiness and privi- 
leges are Christ's gifts to you. But 
he offers you what is far better than 
this ; 

" He comes, the prisoners to release, 
In Satan's bondage held." 

You, my dear children, all need 
him to release you from the slavery 
of sin — a far worse slavery than that 






JESUS AT NAZARETH AGAIN". 103 

of the negroes, and to save you from 
guilt and misery everlasting. 

Children, will you be like the wicked 
Nazarenes, who would not hear Jesus, 
but thrust him out of their city? or 
will you rather be like the people of 
Sychar, who heard him and believed 
on him? 

This day may that Scripture be ful- 
filled in your ears ! This day, if you 
will accept him, his Gospel shall bring 
peace and pardon and salvation to 
you. 




VIII. 



JESUS AT THE PHARISEE S TABLE. 
[Luke vii. 36-50.] 

E often read in our Bible 
of Jesus sitting at a table 
or "sitting at meat.' If 
you would "see Jesus" at a 
table, you must remember 
that they did not set their 
tables at all as we do. Instead of 
chairs, they had wide couches, more 
like what we call "lounges,' 1 but 
broad enough for a man to lie down 
across one of them, having his head 
toward the table, resting the weight 
of his body on his left elbow, and his 

104 




JESUS AT THE PHARISEE'S TABLE. 105 

feet extended away from the table, 
just off the farther edge of the couch. 
The servants who brought the food 
would come up on the opposite side 
of the table, where there would be no 
couch, and other servants could pass 
alono- the back side of the room and 
wash the feet of the guests, without 
disturbing them or hindering them 
from eatino- or conversing. 

They wore no boots or shoes. Their 
sandals were only soles of shoes fast- 
ened on by straps, somewhat as we 
fasten skates; and in walking about 
their feet would become dustv, and it 
would be very refreshing to have them 
washed. I should think they would 
generally wash them before going to 
the table, but it might sometimes be 
more convenient for quests to take 
their places at once on those broad 



106 SEEING JESUS. 

couches, and let the servants cool and 
cleanse their feet as they lay. 

On one occasion, Luke tells us, 
our Lord was invited by " one of the 
Pharisees," to "eat with him," and he 
accepted the invitation.' As he sits, or 
rather lies reclining, partaking of the 
friendly Pharisee's food, and doubt- 
less conversing with him and his 
other guests, there comes in a woman, 
who goes along on that side of the 
room where Jesus is reclining and 
stops at his feet. She evidently has 
come in on his account. Does she 
know him? Does she love him? Will 
she speak to him? 

She does not speak to him. She 
leans forward over his feet, and im- 
mediately her tears drop on them like 
rain. At the same time the loose 
tresses of her long hair fall forward, 



JESUS AT THE PHARISEE'S TABLE. 107 

veiling her flushed face and covering 
his feet as she stoops to kiss them. 
So abundant are her tears that they 
fairly "wash 1 his feet, and her hair 
dropping upon them serves the pur- 
pose of a towel. When she has thus 
wept a while over the feet which she so 
affectionately caresses, and has become 
able to stop her abundant tears, she 
takes a box filled with very costly and 
fragrant ointment, breaks it and 
pours it over the feet of the Saviour. 
It fills the whole room with a delicious 
odor, and calls the attention of all 
present to the woman's remarkable 
behavior. 

To the host, whose name we find to 
be Simon, the behavior of our Lord 
seems equally remarkable. He won- 
ders that he will allow a woman to 
take such liberty with him, and thinks 



108 SEEING JESUS. 

he cannot be a prophet, else he would 
know that she is a bad woman. 

]N\) doubt he does know it, and 
knows equally well what is passing in 
the Pharisee's mind. 

So he speaks a parable to Simon in 
the hearing of all his other guests, 
and Luke afterward writes it down for 
the instruction of mankind in all com- 
ing ages. In the parable Jesus tells 
Simon of a man who had two debtors, 
one owing him a small sum of money, 
and the other owing ten times as 
much. As neither of them was able 
to pay, the generous creditor " frankly 
forgave them both." Now " which of 
them will love him most?" asks Je- 
sus, and Simon readily answers, " I 
suppose- he to whom he forgave 
most." Then Jesus calls his attention 
to the extraordinary love which the 



JESUS AT THE PHARISEE'S TABLE. 109 

poor woman has shown to him, and 
lets him know that it is because of the 
forgiveness of her many sins. 

He afterward speaks gently to her 
words of sweet encouragement, assur- 
ing her that her sins are forgiven, 
however many and however dark 
they may be, and bids her " Go in 
peace y 

From this I think we ou°*ht to learn 
our Lord's wav of treating sinners 
and the proper effect of such treat- 
ment upon them. 

1. The fact that this woman felt her- 
self to be a sinner made her welcome 
to Jesus. When Simon said in his 
heart, " She is a sinner " he probably 
meant that she was a disgraceful sin- 
ner — a disreputable, abandoned, out- 
cast woman. He probably regarded 

her as a woman whom it would dis~ 
10 



110 SEEING JESUS. 

grace him to associate with, and per- 
haps felt that Jesus was disgraced and 
polluted by her touching his feet. 

There are many people who care 
a great deal more for honor than 
they care for purity, and dread dis- 
grace much more than guilt. The 
real guilt of anything in the sight of 
God does not trouble them so much as 
the shame of it in the sight of men. 
Probably the Pharisee was one of that 
sort. His pride and what he con- 
sidered his delicacy were shocked by 
seeing a vile woman kissing the feet 
of one who passed for a prophet. 

I dare say the poor woman had felt 
the burden of disgrace, Probably she 
had been scorned and pushed aside by 
those who claimed to be respectable — 
not unlikely those who had led her 
into sin had helped to push her down 



JESUS AT THE PHARISEE'S TABLE. Ill 

into shame, as such selfish and cruel 
tempters generally do ; and her situ- 
ation may have been as forlorn and 
wretched as that of disgraced women 
always is. 

But it does not seem to me that this 
was much in her mind at the time we 
are speaking of. I do not think that 
any scornful looks of the Pharisee 
into whose house she had come were 
observed by her. I do not believe 
that she took notice of him or of any 
one except Jesus. And I do not think 
that she went to Jesus with any idea 
that he would rescue her from disgrace. 
She was feeling a heavier burden, a 
deeper sorrow, than that of being de- 
spised by men and pointed at and 
insulted. She felt that she was a 
sinner. She felt her guilt more than 
her shame. That guilty feeling hurts 



112 SEEIXG JESUS. 

us m the very deepest place of our 
souls — the deepest and the tenderest. 
When we are once made to know 
what sin is in the sight of God, and 
that he in his holiness sees it and 
hates it in our souls, it does not then 
seem to be of so much importance 
what our fellow-men think of us. So 
I think it was with this woman, and 
that she came into Simon's house, and 
came near to Jesus, even to his feet, 
■with her heart aching with the dread- 
ful feeling of guilt. "A sinner?" 
Yes, indeed she was. Simon could 
not speak the word with half the 
loathing that she felt for herself, nor 
could he, in all his pride, begin to im- 
agine the horror at her own guilt with 
which she was shuddering. 

But she somehow felt and believed 
that Jesus could help her, even in that 



JESUS AT THE PHARISEE^ TABLE. 113 

trouble — could make that burden fall 
off frbm her. How she knew this I 
cannot tell, nor how well she under- 
stood it. I do not suppose that she 
could have explained it. If Jewish 
doctors or Christ's disciples had ques- 
tioned her about it, I think it likely 
she could not have answered a word. 
But she believed in Jesus. She knew 
enough for that, and that was enough 
to save her. She might have known 
much more, and not have done that; 
and then she would not have been 
saved. It is not by knowledge that 
we are saved, but by faith, by trust. 

She just trusted Jesus. She came 
to him because she trusted him — 
showed that she trusted him by com- 
ing to him; and you see that her com- 
ing with such a painful sense of sin 

made her welcome to Jesus. That 
10* 



114 SEEING JESUS. 

was the very thing that made her 
welcome. He came not to call the 
righteous, but sinners to repentance. 

Let those who really are and really 
feel guilty — who are and feel that 
they are sinners — come to Jesus, and 
know that on that very account they 
are welcome. 

Is that so with any of you? 

2. There is nothing else that pro- 
duces such love as the forgiveness of 
sins. This penitent woman, whose 
many sins were forgiven her, loved 
Jesus unspeakably. She could not 
have told him how much she loved 
him. She did not try — did not think 
of trying. She did not speak to him. 
Perhaps she could hardly have looked 
him in the face. But her simple ac- 
tion showed that she loved him with 
her whole heart, and felt that nothing 



JESUS AT THE PHAKISEE's TABLE. 115 

which she had was too precious to be 
given to him. 

So will it be with us when we have 
been made to feel our guilt, and, trust- 
ing in Jesus, have felt the sweet assur- 
ance of forgiveness. Our most pre- 
cious things will not seem too precious 
to be given to Him who has given his 
blood for us. 




*.<& 



__ 



IX. 



THE TEANSFIGUEATION. 




[Matt. xyii. 1-8 ; Mark ix. 2-8 ; Luke ix. 28-36.] 



HERE is a beautiful en- 
j^gravihg which may be 
found at some of the pic- 
ture-shops, and perhaps on 
the parlor walls in some of 
your homes, which repre- 
sents the scene in which I would 
now like to help your minds to "see 
Jesus." 

It does not represent him in the 
plain garments which he commonly 
wore, but in robes of heavenly bright- 
ness, " white as the light." On either 
side of him are two other figures, 

116 



THE TRANSFIGURATION. 117 

human in shape, but glorified like 
unto angels, looking reverently to- 
ward him, their acknowledged Lord. 
A mountain is beneath their feet, yet 
they do not stand upon it, but seem 
floating in the air above, Jesus higher 
than the others. Prostrate upon the 
ground are the figures of three men, 
" overshadowed by a bright cloud, 
their hands shielding their dazzled 
eyes," so as to give them a glimpse, 
such as they can bear, of the glorified 
Master. 

These engravings are copies of a 
painting, made more than three hun- 
dred years ago, which hangs unfaded 
in the palace of the pope in Rome. 
It was painted by Raphael, and is (I 
believe) considered the greatest paint- 
ing that any human artist ever pro- 
duced. 



118 



SEEING JESUS. 



What is the scene which that fa- 
mous picture represents ? 



THE TRANSFIGURATION. 

Mark, Matthew and Luke all de- 
scribe it. They speak of it as about 
a week after a conversation which 
Jesus had had with his disciples, in 
which he had asked their opinion of 
him, and Peter had declared him to 
be "The Christ of God." Matthew 
and Mark say, "after six days,' and 
Luke says, "about an eight days.' 
He does not speak exactly, but only 
as one who remembers that the time 
he speaks of is about a week. So it 
might happen if some soldiers who 
were under General Grant at the time 
of Lee's surrender were telling how 
long that was after Lee's army was 
driven out of Richmond. They left 




Ci 



© 

s 
Oh 



111 




' "HI 



•; ' \ 



.1 i» ; 



3 

&2 



THE TRANSFIGURATION. 119 

Richmond on one Sabbath, and sur- 
rendered on the next Sabbath. jNTow, 
one soldier might call this " about 
eight days," counting both the Sab- 
baths, and another might say it was 
" after six days," counting only the 
davs between those Sabbaths on which 
the two things happened. 

Thev have not told us which moun- 
tain it was on which this wonderful 
scene was witnessed. It has commonly 
been supposed that it was Tabor, a 
mountain to which you can go from 
Nazareth in about two and a quarter 
hours, and which it takes about an 
hour to ascend. It stands alone in a 
plain, having a circular base, and ris- 
es about a thousand and three hun- 
dred feet from the plain. 

We do not know, however, that the 
transfiguration took place upon Tabor. 



120 SEEING JESUS. 

There are several other mountains in 
that part of the land to which all that 
the sacred writers say about it would 
perhaps apply as well. It may be 
that God has not let us know the pre- 
cise spot where this occurred, lest we 
should superstitiously pay too much 
respect to it. Doubtless he would 
have us care less about knowing the 
ground on which our Lord's transfig- 
uration took place than about rightly 
understanding the great religious 
truth which it signified. 

Only three of the twelve disciples 
witnessed the transfiguration — the 
same three whom he took with him 
when he raised the daughter of Jai- 
rus and when he went to his agony in 
the garden. These were Peter, James 
and John. Peter in his second Epistle 
alludes to this, in a wav that show r s 



THE TRANSFIGURATION. 121 

how very important he felt it to be. 
(See 2 Peter L 16-18.) 

Peter, you remember, it was who 
said, " Lord, it is good for us to be 
here," and who proposed to " build 
three tabernacles," or tents, for the 
Lord and his heavenly visitors. I think 
it was like Peter thus to forget him- 
self and his fellow-disciples in his 
eagerness duly to honor and accom- 
modate his Lord and the glorified 
saints who were with him. 

But although it was a good and un- 
selfish impulse that prompted Peter 
to propose this, it was not a proposal 
which the Lord thought best to accept. 
Hardly had he done speaking before 
the heavenly visitors had disappeared, 
and Jesus w^as alone with the three 
disciples, looking, I suppose, as he or- 
dinarily did. Before long they all 
11 



122 SEEING JESUS. 

went down to the plain together, 
where they found a poor boy torment- 
ed by the devil, and his afflicted 
father, who had besought the disciples 
to heal him, and they could not. The 
Master himself had to come down from 
the mount of glory, to be busy again 
with works of mercy among suffering, 
wretched people. 

What did Peter and his two brother 
disciples learn from the transfigura- 
tion ? And what should we learn from 
their account of it? 

1. See how it honored Jesus. Moses 
and Elias (called Elijah in the Old 
Testament) were two as distinguished 
characters as the Old Testament men- 
tions. The Jews gave great honor to 
Moses, and were proud to call them- 
selves " Moses' disciples." Oocl had 
honored him by speaking to him face 



THE TRANSFIGURATION. 123 

to face, and by giving to him the Law, 
for his people and for all mankind. 
He had greatly honored Elijah also, 
not only by sending him as a prophet 
to warn his people and their king- 
when they had become very wicked 
and disobedient, and giving him mi- 
raculous powers to overawe theiti and 
to support his authority, but by at last 
translating him to heaven in " a 
chariot of fire.' These two were sent 
to pay such honor to Jesus, and to 
make his disciples know that such 
glorified saints as they were subject to 
him. 

Moses, you know, being the receiv- 
er of the Law for God's people, was 
looked upon as the inspired founder 
of the Jewish religion, and many of 
the Jews were jealous of Jesus, as if he 
sought to overthrow that religion. He 



124 SEEING JESUS. 

said that he came " not to destroy, but 
to fulfill it;' and we can see how 
much it might help the disciples, who 
were Jews and had Jewish prejudices, 
to see such honor paid to Jesus by 
Moses. They needed to learn that 
while " the Law was given by Moses," 
and ""grace and truth came by Jesus 
Christ," Moses and Jesus Christ were 
not opposed to each other, but Jesus 
was Moses' Lord. Jesus would honor 
and fulfill the Law that was given by 
Moses : Moses would acknowledge 
and honor the Gospel of salvation 
which is by Jesus Christ. In heaven 
they sing " the song of Moses and the 
Lamb " in utmost harmony. We can- 
not honor Jesus unless we love and 
strive to obey the Law. 

2. We may see what interest was 
taken in heaven in the work which 



THE TRANSFIGURATION. 125 

Jesus was doing upon the earth. This 
is not the only instance in which that 
was shown. 

You recollect that after his tempta- 
tion in the wilderness, when the devil 
left him, " angels came and ministered 
unto him;" and you must also re- 
member that in his agony in Gethse- 
mane "there appeared unto him an 
angel from heaven strengthening 
him, ,! Those holy beings in the world 
of bliss who had not sinned, and did 
not need to be saved from sin, took 
such deep interest in the work and 
the agony by which we were to be 
saved, and had such S} 7 mpathy with 
Him who suffered to save us. 

In this instance, not two unfallen, 
but two redeemed spirits, who had 
been blessed for ages, came to con- 
verse with their Lord and ours of 
11* 



126 SEEING JESUS. 

"the decease which he should ac- 
complish at Jerusalem." 

If we ever go to heaven, when we 
have been there for ages we shall 
estimate Christ's work and suffering, 
without which we could never come 
thither, far more highly than we now 
do or can. Those who neglect this 
great salvation surely do not view it 
as Moses and Elijah did. 

3. We see what strong reason the 
disciples had for trusting in Jesus. 
Peter tells us how he felt about this, 
in his second Epistle: "For we have 
not followed cunningly-devised fables 
when we made known unto you the 
power and coming of our Lord Jesus 
Christ, but were eye-witnesses of his 
majesty. For he received from God 
the Father honor and glory, when 
there came such a voice to him front 



THE THANSFIGUKATIOST. 127 

the excellent glory, This is my be- 
loved Son, in whom I am well pleased, 
And this voice which came from 
heaven we heard w T hen we were with 
him in the holy mount." 2 Peter i. 
16-18. 

It seems as if none of the manv 
other . things which Peter saw and 
heard — the raising of Lazarus and of 
Jairus' daughter, and all — made so 
strong an impression on his mind as 
this. 

Peter was surely as well qualified 
to estimate this correctly as any one 
living now can be. I am disposed 
to take his estimate, and just to be- 
lieve that he and the others heard God 
speak to them out of the cloud u on 
the holy mount," assuring them that 
He who was there and thus trans- 
figured was his own beloved Son, to 



128 SEEING JESUS. 

whom they and all men should 
obediently listen. 

Peter and the others have testified 
this to us, so that our obligation is the 
same as was theirs — the same as if we 
had been on the mount, had seen the 
heavenly whiteness of Jesus' robes 
and the heavenly glory of his face, and 
heard that voice of Grod "out of the 
excellent glory." 

Children, do you obey that voice? 
Have you obeyed it? Will you now 
obey it? 

The beloved, the glorious Son of 
God calls you to be his followers — to 
take and have him for your Master 
and your Saviour. Will you, do you 
obey? 



X. 




JESUS WITH THE SIXXIXG WOMAN. 

[John viii. 2-11.] 

^ TOLD you before of a re- 
pmarkable picture in the 
Pope's palace at Rome, 
representing our Lord Jesus 
Christ in his transfiguration; 
that is, in the glorious appear- 
ance which he assumed upon the 
mountain to which he had gone with 
three of his disciples, and where 
Moses and Elijah met him and talked 
with him. 

There is another beautiful picture 
by one of those old painters, represent- 
ing our Lord in another scene, in 

129 



130 SEEING JESUS. 

which I would like to help you see 
him. Indeed there are more than one 
picture of that scene, and of some of 
them there are engravings of which 
there are many copies, and probably 
you have all seen some of them. 

It represents our Lord standing in 
the midst of a court of the temple — 
standing erect with a very mild and 
affectionate and yet a sorrowful look 
upon his face, while not far from his 
feet is a woman half kneeling and half 
sitting upon the ground, bowing down 
her head, covering her face with her 
hands and looking perfectly over- 
whelmed with shame and sorrow. 

Do you know what woman that 
w r as? Her name is not given in the 
Bible ; we do not know whose daugh- 
ter or sister she w T as ; and w 7 e do not 
know whether she was married or 



JESUS WITH THE SINNING WOMAN. 131 

single. We know nothing else about 
her except what is in the story which 
that picture illustrates. 

She had been guilty of a most dread- 
ful and most shameful sin — the most 
shameful sin of which a woman or a 
man can be guilty — the sin which is for- 
bidden in the seventh commandment, 
and against which Grod kindly means 
to warn you and to guard you by the 
shame which you feel for anything that 
is indecent or immodest. 

The woman had been guilty of that 
sin — she had been detected in it — and 
now she was covered with that over- 
whelming shame. 

Harsh, stern men had led her into 
that public place, into the presence of 
the holy Jesus ; had told him of her 
offence; had cited the law of Moses, 
which required such sinners to be 



132 SEEING JESUS. 

stoned to death ; and had asked him 
what should be done about it. 

What do you suppose must have 
been her thoughts and feelings at that 
moment? No doubt she knew that 
her accusers were right in what they 
said about the law. She must have 
known that she deserved to be stoned 
to death ; must have felt that she was 
not any longer fit to live among de- 
cent and virtuous people ; and if she 
knew how holy Jesus was, and how 
strictly he explained the law of God, 
must she not have expected that he 
would condemn her ? When her accu- 
sers had done speaking, and there was 
silence, I think the poor woman must 
have been shuddering with dread of 
the fearful words she must have ex- 
pected him to speak. 

But see him. Making no answer, 



JESUS WITH THE SINNING WOMAN. 133 

he stoops down and writes on the 

ground with his finger. Nothing else 

could make him seem more perfectly 

inattentive to all the men have told 

him. But they keep on pressing him 

to answer — not because they really care 

to be instructed by him, but because 

they think the case will puzzle him, 

and that any answer he can give will. 

bring him into trouble : and that is 

just what they wish, for they are his 

enemies. 

, But Jesus sees deeper into their 

hearts than they think, and knows 

more about their lives. He knows 

that they are no better than the poor 

woman whom they wish to kill. So 

he rises up to his full height ; turns 

his mild but keen, piercing eye upon 

them, and says : " He that is without 

sin among you, let him first cast a 
12 



134 SEEIKG JESUS. 

stone at her." Not a man of them 
touches a stone — not a man of them 
dares to do it. They go out one by 
one and leave the accused woman 
alone with Jesus. 

Now let us see how Jesus will act 
toward such an unhappy sinner. 

1. He does not drive her away from 
Ids presence. Would you think that 
such a holy person as Jesus w r ould be 
willing to let such a sinful and polluted 
creature be so near to him? It must 
be very unpleasant for one who is 
pure and holy to be with guilty and 
impure beings. I doubt whether we 
can know how unpleasant it is. The 
disgust which vou feel at the si°'ht of 
w T hat is filthy and loathsome, the 
pain it gives you to be obliged to stay 
in a filthy and loathsome place, cannot 
be equal to the aversion of a perfectly 






JESUS WITH THE SINNING WOMAN*. 135 

holy being toward all that is sinful. 
Such a being loathes and hates sin 
bevond all that we can imagine. 

Yet the holy Jesus does not tell this 
polluted woman to go away from him, 
and he does not turn in disgust and 
go away from her. Why is this? He 
pities her. He loves her. He wishes 
to cleanse her from her pollution, to 
save her from her sin. Just as the 
most delicate woman, when her own 
child has a loathsome disease, cover- 
ing it all over with frightful sores, 
does not turn away from it, but sits 
by its bedside or holds it on her lap 
day and night, caressing it more 
fondly than when it was well and 
beautiful — just as many a refined lady 
has delighted to be in the hospitals, 
where the soldiers of our country lay, 
notwithstanding all the loathsome 



136 SEEING JESUS. 

sights and smells which she had to 
endure — just so the blessed Jesus, who 
has come from that heavenly home into 
which nothing unclean can ever enter, 
and to whom all sin is infinitelv loath- 
some, is walling to be with the most 
guilty and vile in order to save them. 
He came down from heaven on pur- 
pose for this, and he is too noble in 
his goodness to be turned away in 
disgust from the very creatures whom 
he came to save. 

So there he stands, looking kindly 
on the poor woman at his feet. We 
see no kindling of anger in his face; it 
is full of sorrow and pity, full of com- 
passionate love. 

2. When he speaks to the woman 
he does not harshly denounce her for her 
sin. 

Is this because he does not dis- 



JESUS WITH THE SINNING WOMAN. 137 

approve of her sin as strongly as the 
men who have accused her? None of 
you will think so, I am sure. No one 
could possibly disapprove of every sin 
more strongly than Jesus. His Sermon 
on the Mount gives us the strongest 
idea we have of the hatefulness of sin, 
and he there teaches us that sin in 
the mind, in the secret thoughts, is as 
hateful to him as when it comes out 
in actions. Why then does he not re- 
proach or denounce this woman? I 
think he saw that there was no need 
of it. He saw into her heart as easily 
as into those of her hypocritical 
accusers, and I think he saw it full of 
sincere sorrow and shame. She did 
not need him to tell her that she was 
wicked; she knew it — she felt it — and 
the thought almost crushed her, almost 

sunk her into the ground. He did not 
12* 



138 SEEING JESUS. 

like to add anything unnecessarily to 
her trouble. It did not give him any 
pleasure to inflict pain upon a guilty 
person. I believe he also knew that to 
speak harshly to the sinful is not al- 
ways the best way to make them feel 
their guilt and repent of it. He did 
speak harshly to proud hypocrites who 
had no proper sense of sin, but never to 
humble penitents. He always treated 
them with the greatest tenderness. 

His words to the sinful woman are, 
" Neither do 1 condemn thee. r Won- 
derful, gracious words ! How like 
heavenly music must they have sound- 
ed to her, bowed down as she was with 
sorrow and shame and fear ! Would 
she think that he did not blame her? 
By no means. She would understand 
him to mean that he did not require 
her to be punished — did not condemn 



JESUS WITH THE SINNING WOMAN. 139 

her to be put to death. She is for- 
given — forgiven by ■ Him who "has 
power on earth to forgive sins" — by 
the Son of God. 

3. Yet he makes her know and feel 
that she must forsake her sin — must 
leave off sinning. " Go and sin no 
more," he says to her, and these ap- 
pear to be his parting words. We are 
not told what became of the woman 
afterward. We should like to know 
whether she obeyed the Saviour and 
ever afterward led a pure life, as be- 
came his disciple, or whether she fell 
again into sin and was lost. For my 
part, I believe the former. I do not 
believe that one to whom our Saviour 
thus spake was less than a true pen- 
itent and a true believer in him ; 
and such a one, I am sure, he would 
never give up to Satan. " He is able 



140 



SEEING JESUS. 



to save to the uttermost,' and he does 
save to the uttermost, all who come 
unto Grod by him ; and they are all 
penitent sinners who humbly trust 
themselves to him to be brought un- 
to God. 

But what we know is this, that if 
this woman was saved by Christ, it was 
by being cured of her sin — by being 
made obedient to his word, " Sin no 



more. 



n 



Can you think of anything else so 
well calculated to call a person away 
from a sinful life? Could anything 
else awaken such desire to leave off 
sinning, to become free from sin, as to 
have been so near to the holy Saviour, 
to have found him so kind and good, 
and to have heard such gracious 
words from him ? 

Could anything else be so encourag- 



JESUS WITH THE SINNING WOMAN. 141 

ing to a penitent sinner really desiring 
to lead a new life — a life of piety and 
purity — as to be so treated by the Sa- 
viour — to have it made evident that he 
does not think it useless to say, " Sin 
no more?" 

It is not useless for Jesus to say 
that to us, and it is not useless for us 
to try to obey him. Sincerely and 
humbly trying, we may have him to 
help us. We ought to expect his help, 
and to depend upon having it by con- 
stantly asking for it. Never should 
we let a day pass without recollecting 
that we need the help of Jesus in this 
very matter of getting free from sin. 
It should encourage us to this to re- 
flect on his gentle and kind treatment 
of this erring woman. 

We are all sinful as she was. If 
we have not been left to fall into such 



142 SEEING JESUS. 

shameful misconduct, we mav have 
done other things quite as wicked. We 
may be as bad in heart, even in that 
same respect, for our Saviour teaches us 
that impure thoughts, the indulgence 
of impure desires, break the com- 
mandment as truly as gross actions. 
Whatever sin there is in us is loath- 
some to the Saviour. Yet he has the 
same kind patience, the same tender 
compassion toward us as he had to- 
ward that sinful woman. We may, 
and should with our minds, " see Je- 
sus " looking upon us just as kindly 
as he looked upon her. 

There are two wavs of being' affected 
by this, which are very opposite ; one 
of which will save you, and the other 
of which will ruin you. 

If you conclude, because Christ is so 
gentle and gracious, that you may be 



JESUS WITH THE SINNING WOMAN. 143 

easy in your sins and go on sinning 
without fear, that will ruin you. 
Jesus is not a Saviour at all to those 
who willingly go on in sin. To those 
who thus abuse his grace he will at last 
be " revealed in flaming fire, taking 
vengeance." Nothing is so dreadful as 
"the wrath of the Lamb,' which will 
consume all such abusers of his grace. 
But if, instead of being encouraged 
to go on in sin by the gentle mercy of 
Jesus, you are encouraged to turn 
from sin and come to him, and to be- 
lieve that he will accept you and will 
help you leave off sinning, as well as 
pardon you for all your past sins, and 
if, trusting his mercy, you do honestly 
and faithfully try to "go and sin no 
more," he will help you, he will keep 
on helping you, and, enduring to the 
end, you shall be saved. 



XI. 

JESUS IK THE HOUSE OF MARTHA AND 

MARY. 

ETHANY is a little vil- 
| lage not quite two miles 
from Jerusalem, just over 
on the eastern side of the 
Mount of Olives. Travel- 
ers visit it now, and there 
are monks living there who show them 
what they call "the house of Mary and 
Martha," and also the sepulchre from 
which Lazarus came forth when Jesus 
called him after he had been dead 
four days. But I believe there is not 
much evidence that the monks are 
correct in this. We could not be 

144 




MARTHA AND MARY. 145 

certain of finding the exact spots 
where Lazarus was raised and where 
he lived with his sisters, but we should 
have no difficulty in finding Bethany, 
and we have reason to think that, in 
many respects, it is much the same 
sort of village now as when our Lord 
used to visit it. Groins over the 
Mount of Olives from Jerusalem, Ave 
would have a right to think that we 
were walking along the same road 
which the feet of the Master often 
trod. It would be very pleasant to do 
this. But it is not necessarv, and we 
have not now the opportunity. We 
can. however, by attending to what 
the evangelist Luke has written 
(Luke x. 38-42), bring before our 
minds what happened in that cottage 
so long ago, almost as clearly and per- 
haps quite as instructively as if we had 

13 



146 SEEING JESUS. 

been there at the time, and had seen 
the house and the sisters and the 
Master, with our bodily eyes. 

I suppose that Jesus was in that 
house many times. John tells us 
(John xi. 5) that " Jesus loved Martha 
and her sister, and Lazarus.' The 
whole beautiful story of Lazarus being 
sick and dying, and of Jesus raising 
him to life, seems to me to show that 
those sisters were well acquainted 
with Jesus, and felt free to go to him, 
or to send messages to him, as to a 
dear Friend of whose love and 
sympathy they were sure. 

I think that they were such people 
and had such a home that Jesus liked 
to be with them in their home when, 
weary with his labors in Jerusalem, he 
needed rest and refreshment; and I do 
not think that any other human home 



MAETHA AND MARY. 147 

and family ever had higher honor put 
upon them than that of being thus 
visited and thus regarded by Him 
who came down from heaven. Yet 
this is an honor and a blessedness which 
any of us mav have for our home and 
family if we will be in spirit and tem- 
per and life and faithful love to Jesus 
what the family in Bethany were. He 
will not now come to us in bodilv 
presence, but he will come with a 
presence that is just as real and just 
as able to bless us. 

Let us now go in thought to Beth- 
any, and let us try to bring before 
our minds what Luke has described 
so clearly that it will be as if we saw 

it- 

" Martha received him into her 
house.' ' I suppose that Martha was 
the older sister, and so the house was 



148 SEEING JESUS. 

called hers : she seems to have had the 
superintendence and direction of the 
household affairs, and she appears to 
have been a diligent and careful house- 
keeper. ~No doubt she liked to have 
her house and her table and all that 
belonged to them in good order ; and 
then she loved to welcome so good and 
excellent a person as she knew Jesus 
to be to the enjoyment of all the com- 
fort and rest and refreshment which 
her house and her table could afford. 
When Jesus came, she " received him 
into her house " — no doubt with the 
most hearty welcome. 

Luke goes on to tell us, however, 
that " Martha was cumbered about 
much serving.' This means that she 
was very busy, and taking a great deal 
of pains in providing what she thought 
needful for the comfort and refresh- 



MARTHA AND MARY. 149 

ment of her guest ; and when she 
found that Mary seemed forgetful of 
all this, and had sat quietly down at 
Jesus' feet to listen to whatever he 
would say, she seems to have been dis- 
satisfied, perhaps a little fretful, and 
she complained of her sister to Jesus. 
Oh if we could have seen Jesus then, 
as he raised his eyes from the humble 
and attentive learner at his feet and 
turned them upon the busy, flurried, 
yet kind and well-meaning housewife 
avIio stood by his side! Her interrup- 
tion and her complaint did not flurry 
him — nothing ever did that. With 
perfect composure, yet I think with a 
touch of tender sorrow in his tone, 
he said " Martha, Martha, thou art 
careful and troubled about manv 
things, but one thing is needful;" and 
then I do not believe that any other 



150 SEEING JESUS. 

human voice could tune itself to the 
heavenly sweetness with which he said, 
" and Mary hath chosen that good part 
which shall not be taken from her.' : 
Can you imagine the infinite satis- 
faction which filled Mary's heart when 
she heard those words, and when she 
looked up again into that face that 
looked down so kindly upon her ? 

Would not you like to be sitting 
thus at Jesus' feet and hearing his 
words? Then surely you will try with 
me to get all the good instruction we 
can from the words w T hich he spake to 
Martha and Mary. It will, I think, 
help us to do this to have brought all 
that scene so distinctly before us. 

Let us now try to understand these 
two things : 

I. What Jesus reproved in Martha. 

II. What he commended in Mary. 



MARTHA AND MARY. 151 

I. In Martha. — 1. He did not blame 
her for taking good care of her house. 
I cannot think that Jesus would have 
been pleased to find Martha's house in 
disorder, or to have seen evidences 
that she was not tidy and diligent 
and thrifty. It could not have pleased 
him to see her indifferent to his com- 
fort or that of her sister and brother. 
I have no doubt that it was pleasanter 
to Jesus to be in a house well and 
neatly kept than in one which was 
untidy and disorderly; nor do I be- 
lieve that he disapproves of the care 
and attention and diligence which are 
necessary to make a house comfortable 
and inviting. " Jesus loved Martha." 
I have no doubt that he saw sincere 
kindness and sincere love to himself 
in Martha's bustling activity and her 
anxious caretaking. 



152 SEEING JESUS. 

2. But he saw that she carried that 
to excess. It was right for her to take 
care of her housekeeping, but she was 
taking too much care of it. It was 
right for her to take pains to make all 
the inmates of her house, and especially 
her Lord and Master, comfortable, but 
she was taking too much pains for this 
— more than was necessary and more 
than was proportioned to its import- 
ance. He did not need so "many 
things " as she was troubling herself to 
provide to satisfy him. It was not 
rierhtlv honoring him to think that he 
wished so much trouble to be taken for 
his bodily comfort. It rather grieved 
him. 

3. There was something untimely in 
Martha's being so busy just then. 
Probably she thought that was the 
very time to be so, when the Master 



MARTHA AND MARY. 153 

was there, and that was her very 
opportunity to serve him. But Mary 
thought that was the verv time and 
the precious opportunity to hear him, 
to be taught by him, to learn from 
him the way of salvation. And we 
find that Jesus thought her nearer 
right than her sister. Martha was 
wrong in giving up to such things as 
she busied herself with, time that she 
might spend so profitably in listening 
to the " words of eternal life" from 
the lips of the Lord Jesus. She was 
especially wrong in not considering 
that then was her opportunity for 
this, and in not more readily under- 
standing that he would be better 
pleased with seeing her give more 
time and thought to those heavenly 
things, instead of giving so much to 
the earthly things. 



154 SEEING JESUS. 

II. In Mary. — Jesus saw and com- 
mended the disposition to prefer being 
Ms disciple to everything else. I say 
being Ids disciple. I am very anxious 
that you should rightly understand 
,what that is, and I think that Mary's 
behavior may do much to show you 
what it is. I do not know anything 
else so becoming to a disciple as to 
"sit at Jesus' feet and hear his word.'' 
For you should know, children, that a 
disciple is simply a pupil, a scholar. A 
disciple of Jesus is one who learns of 

* 

him. Matt. xi. 29. Mary was exactly 
that. She sat at his feet in humility. 
She liked to take a low place. She 
listened, not merely to gratify her 
curiositv, to notice what interesting 
things he would say, nor to observe 
how beautifully and eloquently he 
would say them, but to be instructed, 



MARTHA AND MARY. 155 

to be directed, to be made wise unto 
salvation. 

We have good reason to think that 
she listened in a teachable and obedi- 
ent spirit. 

She was so much in earnest about 
this as to lay aside everything else to 
attend to it. I suppose that for the 
time she forgot everything else — even 
forgot that her dear Lord would need 
supper by and by to refresh him. He 
did not blame her for this ; he was 
pleased with her for it. He defended 
her from the censure of her sister, as 
he did afterward from the harsher cen- 
sure of Judas, who blamed her for 
wasting precious ointment upon her 
Master's feet. 

He liked her unworldly disposition. 
He was pleased that she neither 
thought time too precious to be spent 



156 SEEING JESUS. 

in listening to him, nor monev too 
precious to be spent in anointing him, 
manifesting her love to him. 

Is not this, then, that which our Lord 
commended in Mary, that she so loved 
to be near him and to listen to him 
that nothing else whatever could in- 
terest her so much ? — that for nothing- 
else whatever would she give up or 
neglect that privilege? This I consider 
only another way of stating what I 
stated before, that she preferred being 
Ms disciple to everything else. 

That was the good part which Mary 
chose, and which Jesus said should not 
be taken from her. He would not let 
Martha take it from her bv unsea- 
sonably calling her away from his 
feet to the business of housekeeping. 
He would not consent that she 
should be made to think anything 



MARTHA AND MARY. 157 

else more important than learning 
of him. 

I think that his kind words carried 
to Mary's mind a stronger assurance 
than that. I think he meant to assure 
her that nothing whatever shotild pre- 
vent her from obtaining the infinite 
blessing which she sought. She should 
he his disciple, and should have the 
happiness, the salvation which he 
gives. What he gave her she should 
never lose. 

Is there any one of you, my chil- 
dren, who feels just as Mary felt and 
chooses just as Mary chose? — who 
would rather have the privilege and 
happiness of being a disciple of Jesus 
than anything else you can think of? 
Then do not doubt that Jesus has 
exactly the same mind toward you that 
he had toward Mary of Bethany. If 

14 



158 SEEING JESUS. 

4 

your choice is the same as Mary's, 
of that good part, then be sure that it 
" shall not be taken from you." 

But you must really have that 
choice — must really be of Mary's mind 
— must really prefer that good part to 
everything else. 

»• CD 

And now what else is there to 
which you should not prefer this? 
You see that it would not be wise to 
let household cares so occupy your at- 
tention as to draw your minds away 
from Christ— that it is better to be 
contented with a very plain and fru- 
gal way of living than to be so per- 
plexed and harassed with housekeep- 
ing cares as to have no time to com- 
mune with Jesus and to learn of him. 
So it is. I hope you will all continue 
to think so when you are grown — when 
you, girls, may be at the head of 



MARTHA AND MARY. 159 

households, and you, boys, may be 
men of business. But even now, 
while you are children, you are liable 
to make the same kind of mistakes. 

You may prefer play and pleasure 
to Christ. He does not blame you for 
liking to play, he does not wish to de- 
prive you of real pleasure, but he 
sees very quickly if you prefer play 
and pleasure to him. Can you expect 
him not to be grieved and displeased 
with you if he sees that? 

You may prefer success in your 
school-studies to Christ. He does not 
dislike you to be good scholars. He 
wishes to have you faithful and dili- 
gent in your studies and in efforts to 
improve your minds. But it is not so 
important that you excel in your 
studies as that you be disciples of 
Jesus — really, humbly, teachably sit- 



160 



SEEING JESUS. 



ting at his feet and hearing his word, 
learning of him. 

Nothing else is so important as that. 
Nothing else is indispensable. That 
is the one thing needful. 




XII. 



THE LAST SUPPER. 



[Matt, xx vi. ; Mark xiv. ; Luke xxii.] 

ET us trv to "see Jesus " as 
he sat with his disciples at 
" the Last Supper" We mean 
by this the last Passover 
supper in which he took 
part, and the last meal at 
which he sat down (or reclined) before 
his crucifixion. 

It is in an upper room in the city 
of Jerusalem, in the house of a man 
of whom we know nothing except that 
he was willing to give this accommoda- 
tion to Jesus and his disciples; for 




14 



161 



162 SEEING JESUS. 

Jesus had sent two of his disciples into 
the city, telling them that they would 
meet "a man bearing a pitcher of 
water,' who would readily give them 
the use of a suitable room, on their 
simply telling him that "the Master ■ 
desired it; and so it came to pass. Is 
each of us as ready to give up to him 
whatever we learn that "the Master' 
calls for? 

The furnished upper room has been 
made ready; the passover lamb has 
been killed, and the passover supper 
with unleavened bread has been pre- 
pared. The Master sits there, or re- 
clines upon a couch, and all his twelve 
apostles are reclining with him. 

They probably expect that he will 
give them instruction concerning his 
heavenly kingdom — such as he has 
often given before, or perhaps more 



THE LAST SUPPER. 163 

solemn and important. But when 
they look upon him as they are to- 
gether at the table, they see that he is 
exceedingly sad. His expressive face, 
which beamed so brightly with 
heavenly joy when he lifted up his 
eyes to heaven (as they have some- 
times seen him do), and said, "Father, 
I thank thee," now wears a look of 
sorrow such as was never seen on any 
other countenance. He knows what 
is before him — knows what he is 
going to suffer, and already the 
fearful shadow of that agony is upon 
him. 

While they are thus reclining to- 
gether, as closest and dearest friends, 
Jesus tells them that one of them will 
betray him, and by a sign w r hich he 
gives shows that he means Judas. 
The traitor leaves the table, and goes 



164 SEEING JESUS. 

out to find the enemies of his Lord, 
and to betray him unto them. 

I am inclined to think (though per- 
haps the evangelists have not made 
this perfectly clear) that it was after 
Judas went out that the Lord took 
bread, and blessed and brake, and 
gave to them, telling them, " This is 
my body" and then passed the cup 
of wine to them, having given thanks 
over it, and having said, " This is my 
bloody 

He bids them eat the bread and 
drink from the cup " in remembrance 
of him." So he makes this a memo- 
rial supper — a supper to keep him in 
remembrance — to help his disciples 
remember him. 

At the same time he tells them 
that he is about to die for them, to 
give up his body to be mangled and 



THE LAST SUPPER. 165 

Ills blood to be shed, to redeem them 
from sin, from u the curse of the 
Law." 

Is it any wonder that those apostles 
who looked on the Saviour then, who 
saw his face when it had that look of 
loving sorrow upon it, and heard his 
voice, in such touching tones, asking 
those he was going to die for, to remem- 
ber him — is it any wonder that they al- 
ways afterward had it for a custom to 
come together and " break bread," and 
taste wine in remembrance of him ; 
and that they handed down this cus- 
tom to those who loved Jesus after 
them ; and that it has come down 
through all the generations of be- 
lievers ever since — even to us? 

While we are trying to " see Jesus " 
at that Last Supper, we must not forget 
to notice one remarkable thing which 



166 SEEIXG JESUS. 

he did. He rose while the disciples 
were reclining, and took a basin of 
water and a towel, and went around 
washing all their feet and wiping 
them with the towel. That was the 
usual work of a servant — very unfit 
work for the noblest person in the 
company. Oh how unfit for the no- 
blest Person who ever came into this 
world ! He teaches us by this that 
there is nothing that ever needs to be 
done for any of our fellow- creatures, 
which we ought to think it beneath us 
to do. 

If ever you feel unwilling to stoop 
to any low and unpleasant work that 
needs to be done, to render any hum- 
ble service to a poor, suffering person, 
I hope that you will remember Jesus, 
and see him, your Lord and Master, 
washing the feet of his disciples — not 



THE LAST SUPPER. 167 

one of whom was worthy of the honor 
of washing his feet, any more than 
was John the Baptist of loosing the 
latchet of his shoes. 

And now, having tried to " see Je- 
sus ' at the Last Supper, and know- 
ing that then and there began the 
Christian practice of breaking bread 
and tasting wine in remembrance of 
Jesus dying for us, let us study this 
Christian practice a little more. 

There are three principal names by 
which we call it: 

1. The Lord's Supper. It is easy 
to see what this means. The Lord 
instituted it, and we observe it in re- 
membrance of the Lord. 

2. The Communion. The apostle 
Paul teaches us to call it so, for he 
says: "The cup of blessing which we 
bless, is it not the communion of the 



168 SEEING JESUS. 

blood of Christ? The bread which we 
break, is it not the communion of the 
body of Christ?" A communion is a 
sharing or partaking together, as a 
family do, when they all sit down 
together at one table to eat, or around 
one fireside to enjoy each other's com- 
pany, to share together the pleasures of 
conversation, or of singing, or of read- 
ing — all bound together in one common 
love. So it is with the family of Christ 
— those who are united to one another 
in a common love and trust toward 
him. They express this, and show it, 
when thev commune together in the 
Lord's Supper. 

3. The Sacbament. We give this 
name to baptism also, as well as to the 
Lord's Supper. It is not given in the 
Bible, but it is a very proper name, 
and has a very solemn meaning. It 



THE LAST SUPPER. 169 

means an oath. You know that when 
a witness is called to testify in a court, 
he first puts his hand on the Bible or 
else lifts it up toward heaven, and 
swears, or solemnly promises, "that 
he will tell the truth, the whole truth, 
and nothing but the truth;" and the 
officer of the court says, "So help you 
Grod. r This is a solemn appeal to 
God. It means that the witness 
knows that God hears all that he says, 
and he consents to be fearfully pun- 
ished by God, if he shall not tell the 
exact truth, just as he has promised. 

When the President is inaugurated 
— that is, when he begins to be Presi- 
dent — he stands on the porch of the 
Capitol, amid a great crowd of the peo- 
ple, and takes an oath, in which he 
promises to govern the nation according 
to the Constitution and laws of the 

4 

15 



170 SEEING JESUS. 

country, and the Chief Justice says, 
"So help you GodJ and the President 
says after him, " So help me God. 1 ' 
When soldiers are first taken into the 
army, they take an oath to be obedient 
to their officers, and to fight faithfully 
for the flag of the country, the pre- 
cious " star-spangled banner,' against 
all its enemies. 

In the language of the old Romans 
such an oath was called sacr amentum ; 
and from that we have made our word 
Sackament. Everv time that we take 
the cup and the bread at the Lord's 
Supper, we renew our oatJi, our solemn 
promise, to be the Lord's, and to try to 
live faithful, prayerful, useful Chris- 
tian lives; and we solemnly pray the 
Lord to help us do so. 

Dear children, has this little book 



THE LAST SUPPER. 171 

helped you to "see Jesus?" Do you see 
him, as the good evangelists, Matthew 
and Mark and Luke and John, have 
taken so much pains to show him to us? 
Seeing him, do you love him? Are 
you sorry for your sins? Do vou con- 
fess your sins to Jesus? Do you believe 
that his blood was shed to atone for 
your sins? Are you honestly trying 
to live and act every day as Jesus 
wishes you to? Do you really wish to 
sit at his table, among his disciples? 
Then I would advise vou to 2:0 to your 
pastor and tell him just how you feel. 
Perhaps your Sabbath-school teacher 
or your father or mother will go with 
you, if you wish it. I am sure that 
your pastor will be very glad to have 
you come to him; and if you do truly 
love and trust the Lord Jesus, he will 
be glad and thankful to give you the 



172 SEEING JESUS. 

bread and the cup, to help you to 
remember him — to help you more 
distinctly and more aifectionately to 
SEE JESUS. 



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